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A CENTURY OF 
EXPANSION 



BY 
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON, A.M., L.H.D. 



JVifA Maps and Index 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Lra 
1903 

AU rights ristrvtd 






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Copyright, 1903, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903. 



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PREFACE 

The purport of the term "expansion" is some- 
times carelessly misunderstood. It is, apparently, 
supposed to apply to nothing but acquisition of 
territory, and to that of recent date; to wit, our 
annexation of Porto Rico and the Philippines. 
Such a conception is inadequate and misleading. 
Expansion is no new thing, and it is not measured 
by any geographical scale. Its history begins with 
the history of the nation, and both its causes and 
its effects are intimately intertwined with almost 
every fibre of our national being. The expansion 
of the human body is a process of physical growth 
which is maintained incessantly so long as vitality 
is in the ascendant. When growth ceases the man 
begins to die. Moreover, it involves something far 
more than increase of physical bulk and stature. 
It is accompanied by a corresponding and, indeed, 
largely consequent development of the intellectual 
and spiritual nature. We may not say that the 
mind and soul are always developed commensu- 
rately with the physical body. But it is unquestion- 
able that their development does largely depend 
upon the development of the physical powers and 



viii PREFACE 

upon the extension of activities which this makes 
both possible and necessary. A person leading 
the life of a babe in swaddHng clothes could 
never hope to attain the intellectual and spiritual 
development of an active man of affairs. 

The same principle is applicable to the state. 
Territorial expansion increases power, enlarges 
the sphere of activity, adds to responsibilities and 
duties, creates new problems for solution, leads 
to new relationships, and thus induces constitu- 
tional — that is, intellectual and moral — develop- 
ment of the nation. This is generally true of 
growing states. It is especially true of a new 
country under a constitutional government, in 
which the process of expansion began, practically, 
with the foundation of the state and has been 
maintained at intervals ever since. The history 
of American expansion is therefore something far 
more than a record of geographical extension, or 
even of wars and treaties. It involves the history, 
in large measure, of constitutional development 
and interpretation, of domestic institutions, of 
foreign relations, and of our whole national life. 
It is, moreover, a consistent and logical history. 
The physical growth of a man is a steady, per- 
sistent process, not an irregular series of discon- 
nected spasms. We may say the same of our 
territorial expansion. However widely and irregu- 
larly separated by time, the individual acts of ter- 
ritorial acquisition are all intimately and essentially 



PREFACE IX 

related. Order and design characterize them. 
The law of cause and effect is dominant among 
them. In the first step of expansion, in colonial 
times, every subsequent step was forecast and 
made inevitable. From Washington at Great 
Meadows to Dewey in Manila Bay the span, in 
both time and space, is enormous, but it is a span 
of unbroken links of cause and effect, coherent, 
logical, and inevitable. 

The history of American expansion, then, must 
trace this sequence of causes and effects. It must 
also note where national necessity here and there 
impinges upon the line to direct it hither or thither, 
and where in return the processes of expansion 
exert their influence upon the development of 
national institutions and the whole course of 
national thought and life. To do this with all 
possible completeness might well be a long life- 
work, and involve a publication of encyclopaedic 
compass. The present essay has no such ambi- 
tion. It aims to present the salient features of 
the great story, succinctly yet with sufficient 
comprehensiveness, at least, to suggest where it 
does not instruct. It aims, moreover, to deal 
justly with the varying phases of the checkered 
story. For it is not all pride and sunshine. The 
nation has not always acted wisely and well. 
There are things to condemn as well as to com- 
mend. Acts are not always necessarily right just 
because our own country performs them. The 



X PREFACE 

best that we can claim, and we can truly claim it, 
is that, on the whole, our expansion has been a 
sound and beneficent growth, contributing to ele- 
vation of mind and spirit as well as to enlargement 
of area on the map of the world; so that out of 
all the storm and stress of disputed and sometimes 
devious ways — 

" Earth's biggest country's got her soul, 
And risen up earth's greatest nation." 

It is in such confident faith that these pages have 
been penned, and in such a spirit that they are 
laid before the American people. 

W. F. J. 

New York, June, 1903. 



CHAPTER 
I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 
V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

Index 



CONTENTS 

The Opening of the Door . 
Securing the Open Door . 
The Nation first enters in 
Expansion and Constitution 
" The Immutable Principle 

defence " . 
Aggression and Concession 
"Our Arctic Province" 
Mid-sea Possessions 
The Spanish Islands . 
Retrospect and Prospect 



of 



Self 



PAGE 
I 

31 
61 

99 

128 
160 
199 
221 
264 
296 

309 



MAPS 



Territorial Growth of the United States 

Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

The Partitioning of North America at the Be- 
ginning OF THE XVIIIth Century ... 4 

The Partitioning Proposed by Spain and France 

in 1782-3 48 

Texas and Oregon 160 

The American Domain in 1903 .... 296 



A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

CHAPTER I 

THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 

A PHILOSOPHER, equally genial and keen, has 
observed that the education of a man, to be com- 
plete, should begin several generations before he 
is born. A measure of that principle may be 
applied to the history of the territorial expansion 
of the American Republic. That expansion began 
before the Republic was born. The actual acquisi- 
tion of new lands by the United States began only 
a century ago, in the purchase of the Louisiana 
territory from France. The processes and condi- 
tions which led to it, and which made it not only 
possible but inevitable, had an earlier date, preced- 
ing the formation or even the conception of the 
Republic. It will be seen, on consideration, that 
the territorial and political expansion, and even the 
so-called " imperiahsm," which formed so striking 
a feature of our nineteenth century history, were 
anticipated in the very circumstances of the Colum- 
bian discovery of America. ^ 



2 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

That discovery was effected by a man belonging 
to a people who were no longer a nation, who had 
already fallen into apparently irretrievable decay, 
whose feeble life was sustained by the mouldering 
remnants of past greatness, and who had at that 
time neither the ambition nor the capacity to found 
new colonies or to play a new part in the drama of 
the world. Italy was then in fact what Metternich 
in later years cynically declared it to be, "a geo- 
graphical expression," and little more. Columbus 
was, it is true, also the representative and agent of 
another but kindred people, who did form a nation 
and a power, and that nation was then seemingly 
in the ascendant. But it had already implanted 
within itself the fatal elements of sure and swift 
decHne. It was a power then, and for a century 
more, mighty for conquest, but inapt and impotent 
for effective colonization. The result was that 
when Columbus " found a new world for Leon and 
Castile " he gained for that kingdom something 
with which the latter was incompetent to deal. By 
virtue of his adventures Spain might claim owner- 
ship of the whole western hejnisphere. But what 
would she, what could she, do with it .■• 

History soon began to give its inexorable an- 
swer to that question. Spain was able to conquer, 
but not to hold; to spoil, but not to cultivate. 
Through sheer inability to occupy all her new- 
found world, she was compelled to share it with 
other and rival powers. For herself she managed 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 3 

to retain for a long time the major portion, in- 
cluding especially those regions most suited to 
spoliation and least to permanent and important 
settlement, and some of those which were so 
remote, so inaccessible, and so little known as to 
be for the time beyond the ready reach of rivalry. 
But that portion of America lying nearest to 
Europe and resembling Europe most in natural 
characteristics, and therefore best suited to be the 
scene of lasting and extensive European coloniza- 
tion, she was in the course of a century compelled 
largely to relinquish to other powers, and espe- 
cially to France and England. The minor settle- 
ments of Holland and Sweden soon vanished as 
political entities, leaving, however, important and 
valuable elements for incorporation into the Eng- 
lish colonies. At the beginning of the eighteenth 
century, then, just after the treaty of Ryswick, 
the North American continent was partitioned 
substantially as follows : — 

Spain, under title of original discovery and of 
the bull of Pope Alexander VI in 1493, claimed, 
and nominally possessed, all south of the thirty- 
third parallel of latitude east of the Perdido River, 
all south of the Arkansas River between the Sabine 
River and the Rocky Mountains, and all west of 
the Rocky Mountains as far north and south as 
man had ventured. Thus she was mistress of the 
Atlantic and Gulf coasts from near Charleston, 
South Carolina, southward to Central America, 



4 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

with the exception of Louisiana, and of the entire 
Pacific coast of the continent. 

France possessed all north and east of the Pe- 
nobscot River, the valley of the St. Lawrence and 
basin of the Great Lakes, and the interior of the 
continent from the Alleghany Mountains to the 
Rocky Mountains as far south as the Spanish 
boundary line, and to the Gulf in Louisiana, 
between the Perdido and Sabine rivers. 

England had what was left ; namely, the narrow 
strip of Atlantic littoral, from the Penobscot River 
in Maine to Cape Romaine in South Carolina, 
extending inland to the base of the Alleghany 
Mountains. 

Besides having thus by far the least colonial 
possessions, England had also by far the smallest 
domain at home in Europe, and was much the 
smallest in population and in apparent resources 
and prowess. She was, however, differentiated 
from the others in several marked respects, to her 
own incalculable advantage. In after years one of 
her own sons described her as " a nation of shop- 
keepers." The description was largely true, and 
by no means unworthy of a great people. She 
had, in her people if not always in her rulers, the 
genius of practicality. While Spain was seeking 
new lands for the sake of the gold that could be 
extracted from them, and France for the sake of 
the "glory" to be won from carrying her lilied 
standard far and wide, England was establishing 




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THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 5 

industrial colonies and marts of commerce, and 
was creating a new England wherever the Cross 
of Saint George was planted. The difference was 
shown also in the attitude of the three peoples 
toward the natives of America. The Spanish were 
capricious. In some places they exterminated 
them, in some they enslaved them, in some they 
intermarried with them and formed a mongrel 
race, and in some they did all three together. The 
French generally tolerated them, with a good- 
humored patronage, and in not a few cases also 
practised miscegenation. But there was little 
variety and no uncertainty in the conduct of the 
English. They held themselves sternly aloof 
from the natives with an unconquerable pride of 
race, driving them ever from the land and taking it 
all for themselves. Each of the three powers was 
animated by a spirit of expansion and of conquest. 
But the spirits were radically different, and that 
of England was the one which, by the very force 
of natural necessity, was predestined ultimately 
to prevail. 

Nor were those the only differences. There was 
a geographical one, too, not less worthy of con- 
sideration and not less potent in determining the 
course of empire. It has long been a truism that 
John Lackland's sacrifice of England's continental 
provinces was a blessing in disguise. It made the 
English nation insular, which means not only that 
the English became restricted in their views and 



6 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

manner, but also that they were made compact, , 
homogeneous, and more intensely patriotic. They 
were taught to seek the control of the sea ; and 
they found in the sea an unfailing defence against 
their foes and immunity from ahen invasion and 
interference. Had England been a part of the 
continent, accessible to land attack, she would 
have been subject to innumerable invasions and 
probably numerous conquests, as nearly every 
state on the European continent has been. If 
we consider the extent to which the continental 
countries have been the theatre of foreign wars 
and have accordingly been impressed by foreign 
influences, and the centuries of absolute exemp-\ 
tion from all such things which the British Isles 
have enjoyed, we shall discover some of the chief 
sources of British greatness and some of the chief 
springs of British national character. 

Now, it was this very insularity that led the 
English to colonize America in the way they did, 
that perhaps unconsciously gave them here a 
vantage ground that made inevitable a conflict- 
royal for continental supremacy, and that also 
made probable, if not certain, the triumph of the / 
British colonies over those of France and Spain. 
The English colonies were planted along the coast. 
That may have been done through some prescient 
shrewdness. It was more probably due to the 
traditional tastes, habits, and perhaps timorousness 
of the people. The English were coast dwellers. 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 7 

Their own island home was so small that even in 
its Midlands they had never been able to get far 
from the sea. They did not feel at home out of 
the breath of the Atlantic. Accustomed for 
generations to look to the sea for protection and 
for strength, they did not feel secure beyond reach 
of it. So it was that instead of striking inland 
and seeking to occupy the heart of the continent 
they spread themselves in straggling settlements 
along the coast and on the rivers flowing directly 
into the sea, where they would always be within 
reach of the ships that were at once their profit 
and their protection. We have described the 
bounds of their coast colonies as they were at the 
beginning of the eighteenth century. At the mid- 
dle of that century they had pushed no farther 
inland, but they had extended farther along the 
shore, so that they had the whole coast from the St. 
Croix River at the north to the St. Mary's at the 
south, including every valuable harbor save one 
on the entire Atlantic littoral of North America. 

What did that mean .'* We have seen in later 
days more than one controversy over the relations 
between the coast and the so-called "hinterland." 
Portuguese South Africa, the French shore of 
Newfoundland, and the Alaska " pan-handle " are 
familiar examples. They suggest and illustrate 
the almost invariable principle that ownership of 
the shore must lead either to ownership of the 
inland regions by the same power, or to an effort 



8 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

of the inland power to break through the coast 
strip to the sea, or else to interminable friction 
between the two. When the English gained pos- 
session of that long strip of Atlantic coast, a 
conflict between them and whatever power held 
the Mississippi Valley became practically inevi- 
table. If France occupied those inland regions, 
she would find herself shut away from the sea, 
save by the roundabout routes of the St. Law- 
rence and the Mississippi. Either she would suffer 
almost intolerable disadvantages, or she would be 
moved to gain for herself, by diplomacy or by 
force, an outlet across the English coast strip. 
It was thus that the South African Republic 
strove to break through the Portuguese territory 
to Delagoa Bay. It was thus that Canada, with 
no just reason, has long been trying to gain an 
outlet to the Pacific across our Alaskan littoral. 
There was also another course which might be 
pursued, not by France, but by England. It 
would be a hardship to the English colonies on 
the coast to be perpetually exposed to the efforts 
of the French inland to break out, and also to be 
themselves deprived of room for expansion. The 
bold course was to seek in one stroke to rid them- 
selves of the one and to secure for themselves 
the other. Upon this course they decided. They 
would themselves move inland and forestall or 
expel their French rivals. They did not do so, 
however, for a full century after their acquisition 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR g 

of the coast. It was not until then that they 
realized the need of doing so, or that they had 
sufficiently well established the coast colonies to 
use them as the base of such enterprises, or, in- 
deed, had so " found themselves " as to dare to 
venture so far from their native sea. But at last, 
at the middle of the eighteenth century, the mo- 
mentous step was taken. 

That step was taken by Virginia. It was fitting 
that it should be so. The cavalier settlers of the 
Old Dominion were of all the English colonists in 
America the most adventurous and daring, and the 
most inclined to campaigns upon the land rather 
than upon the sea. At that point, moreover, the 
coast strip between the mountains and the sea was 
narrowest, the passage of the mountains was easi- 
est, and the broad prairies of the Ohio Valley were 
most accessible. The great sea-arm of the Chesa- 
peake and the broad, tidal river of the Potomac 
gave entrance from the Atlantic to the very foot 
of the Blue Ridge, and indeed through that range 
into the regions beyond. To New England or 
New York the Ohio Valley seemed as remote as 
the antipodes. Even to Pennsylvania — that is, to 
what is now the eastern part of that state, which 
is all the colony possessed — the headwaters of the 
Ohio, now within the state's boundaries, seemed 
inaccessible, beyond range after range of almost 
impassable hills. But Virginia regarded that region 
as lying near at hand and as easily accessible. 



lO A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Indeed, she already claimed it for her own. The 
vague early boundaries of Maryland gave to that 
colony much of what is now the western part of 
Pennsylvania, while Virginia claimed the extreme 
west of Pennsylvania and Ohio all the way up to 
Lake Erie. In later years Virginia became famed 
as the "mother of Presidents." Long before a 
president was dreamed of, she was in most puis- 
sant fact the mother of expansion and of empire. 
In that primal achievement the first great name 
is that of Alexander Spottswood. To-day his name 
is little remembered, save as borne by a Virginian 
county and its county-seat, — that county, by the 
way, the scene of some of the most tremendous 
struggles of our Civil War. It would be fitting to 
give some further and wider recognition to the 
man who first opened the gates of American ex- 
pansion and literally blazed the way to continental 
empire. By birth and by record he was not un- 
worthy to undertake such a task. He was a scion 
of the illustrious Scottish house of Spottiswoode, 
renowned in theology, statecraft, literature, and 
science. His great-grandfather was John Spottis- 
woode, minister of Calder and " superintendent " 
of Lothian in the Reformed Scottish Church. His 
grandfather was that John Spottiswoode who was 
also minister of Calder, who was made by James 
I archbishop of St. Andrews and primate of 
Scotland in succession to Gladstanes, a forebear 
of WiUiam Ewart Gladstone, who dictated the 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR II 

adoption of the Perth Articles by the reluctant 
Scottish Church, who crowned Charles I at Holy- 
rood and was made by him chancellor of Scotland, 
who was forced by that perfidious king to alienate 
himself from the Scottish Church, so that he was 
excommunicated by it, and was at the same time 
so betrayed by the king as to be compelled to 
resign the chancellorship, who wrote a monu- 
mental " History of the Church of Scotland," and 
whose mortal remains were interred in West- 
minster Abbey. The son of Archbishop Spottis- 
woode, and father of Alexander Spottswood, was 
also a man of parts and distinction. 

Of such ancestry Alexander Spottswood was 
born, and students of heredity may find much fruit- 
ful suggestion in the story of his career. By an- 
cestry Scotch, by nativity African, — he was born 
at Tangier, in Morocco, — in early life a soldier 
under Marlborough in Germany and at Blenheim, 
and finally governor of the colony of Virginia, he 
was deeply imbued with that cosmopolitanism 
which naturally leads toward imperial designs. 
Inheriting the memories of fierce ecclesiastical 
controversies, what wonder that at the end he came 
to grief through a conflict with the Church .'' His 
grandsire, the archbishop, and a kinsman of a 
later generation, William Spottiswoode, the great 
mathematician, were honored with sepulture in 
Westminster Abbey and their names are con- 
spicuously recorded in history. Alexander Spotts- 



12 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

wood's name is written upon the map of a 
world-embracing empire, and his dust is enshrined 
within the soil of the Old Dominion, where the 
gates of that empire were opened by his own hand. 
It is not the least of his distinctions that he was 
one of the best of all our colonial governors. He 
was able, honest, high-minded, far-seeing, enter- 
prising, stalwart in body and in mind, his very 
frailties being of heroic mould. He was one of 
the first true republicans of America, chiding the 
aristocrats of Virginia for their airs and pride and 
equally criticising the commoners for their lack of 
pride and of self-assertion. He would have had 
the former reahze that they were no better than 
the latter, and the latter that they were as good as 
the former. He had, moreover, the personal valor 
to lead whatever venture his ambition dictated. 

This was the man who, as early as in 171 8, first 
" marched over the mountain wall " of the Blue 
Ridge, through the Swift Run Gap, and first of all 
white men entered the beautiful valley of Virginia, 
watered by the Shenandoah. Never was the con- 
quest of an empire begun in fashion more debonair. 
At the head of the cavalcade rode the knightly 
veteran of Blenheim, Spottswood himself, in the 
prime of vigorous manhood, just " come to forty 
year." Behind him were fifty Virginia cavaliers, 
ready for any adventure into which their chief 
might lead. Behind them came a long retinue of 
negro slaves and Indian guides, spare horses, and 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 13 

sumpter-mules laden with provisions and casks of 
native Virginian wine. Marshalled and guided by 
the sound of the hunter's horn, they rode gayly 
through the passes of the Blue Ridge, in the 
enchanting weather which late summer and early 
autumn bestow upon that favored region, and 
entered the valley of the Shenandoah, destined in 
after years to be trodden by the hoofs of other 
cavalcades and to be the scene of tragic desolation. 
There were lacking the fair faces of Virginian 
dames and maidens. It was no expedition for 
womankind. The unknown road was rugged, the 
temper of the Indians was uncertain, and the 
panther crouched on the overhanging branch and 
the rattlesnake coiled in the grass and among the 
autumn flowers. Hardship and deadly peril were 
not unknown to Spottswood and his venturous 
riders. Yet it was on the whole a gay and merry 
company, enjoying, as they themselves declared, a 
glorious hunting-picnic amid the hills. Upon the 
banks of the Shenandoah the camp was pitched, 
and high wassail was held, with the grouse and 
pheasant which they shot in the forest glades and 
the wine they had brought from the vineyards 
of the Virginia lowlands. A smile is provoked by 
the memory that Spottswood first named the river 
Euphrates, in accord with the neo-classicism of 
that day. Better and more to the present purpose 
was his act in declaring the river and all the lands 
it drained and watered the property of the British 



14 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

crown. He made formal record of that fact, 
placed the writing in a bottle from which he had 
just drained the last drop of Virginian wine, and 
buried it deeply upon the bank of the river. Then 
he and his comrades rode back again to their 
homes. 

That, however, was not the end of his venture. 
Spottswood was not content with this mere excur- 
sion across the hills. His discerning eye looked 
far beyond, to all but limitless empire, until we can 
almost fancy Swift Run Gap aligned with the 
Golden Gate. An Indian guide had pointed out 
to him, as he stood upon a peak of the Blue Ridge, 
another mountain peak, far to the west and north, 
just visible upon the horizon through the autumnal 
haze. From that farther summit, said the Indian, 
one might see the sparkle of the great fresh-water 
sea which we now call Lake Erie. The suggestion 
fascinated Spottswood. He could not then ride on 
to that distant Alleghany peak. But he conceived 
the bold plan of one day doing so, not with fifty 
but with fifty hundred riders in his train, and with 
an innumerable following of sturdy settlers, to 
seize upon and to occupy the whole vast region 
from the mountains to the lake, even as the nar- 
rower strip from the mountains to the sea had 
already been secured. He wrote to the Lords of 
Trade in London plainly to that effect. The French 
had already made settlements along the lakes. 
They had pushed southward as far as the Mis- 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 1 5 

sissippi River between the Ohio and the Illi- 
nois. They had founded at Kaskaskia what was 
already a large town, with a monastery and a col- 
lege. Before long, if unchecked, they would have 
a chain of forts and towns connecting Canada with 
Louisiana. Such a line of alien posts surrounding 
the English colonies on their landward side would 
be a constant menace to the latter. " To prevent 
the dangers ..." wrote Spottswood, "nothing 
seems to me of more consequence than that now, 
while the nations are at peace, and while the 
French are as yet uncapable of possessing all 
that vast tract which lies on the back of these 
Plantations, we should attempt to make some 
settlement on the Lakes, and at the same time 
possess ourselves of those passes of the great 
mountains which are necessary to preserve a com- 
munication with such settlements." 

There spoke the first great expansionist. In 
that letter to the Lords of Trade was sounded the 
first key-note of English-speaking empire in the 
western world. We may describe Spottswood's 
scheme with a paraphrase of the words of a later 
empire builder : " From the ocean to the Lakes — 
all that for England ! " But it was not for him 
to realize the splendid dream. The ears of the 
Lords of Trade were heavy, and they did not hear. 
Meantime animosities against Spottswood arose 
and thickened. His benefactions to the College of 
William and Mary, and his efforts to christianize 



1 6 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

the Indians, did not save him from ecclesiastical 
enmities, which finally forced him from the gov- 
ernorship. Six years after his epoch-making ride 
through the gateway of the Blue Ridge he was 
removed from office. But his love for Virginia 
endured, and he remained a resident of that colony. 
He became colonial postmaster in 1736, and in 
1739 was selected to lead the forces which it was 
intended to despatch for the conquest of Florida, 
— a work which to him would have been most wel- 
come. But he died in 1740, with that work un- 
done, leaving his last home to be, a generation 
later, the scene of the surrender of Cornwallis. 

His imperial plans, as prudent and as timely as 
they were ambitious and aggressive, were held in 
abeyance, to be executed later at fearful cost, the 
usual penalty of neglect. They were finally re- 
vived and pressed to execution by another Vir- 
ginian governor, who resembled Spottswood in 
only two particulars : He was a Scotchman, and 
he was an expansionist. If Spottswood was one of 
the best colonial governors, Robert Dinwiddle was 
assuredly one of the worst — after the infamous 
Berkeley, perhaps the very worst — the Old Domin- 
ion ever knew. Where Spottswood was bold as a 
lion, Dinwiddie was a poltroon. Where the one was 
honorable, honest, and high-minded, the other was 
mean, unscrupulous, and base. Dinwiddie was as 
arbitrary and arrogant as Berkeley himself, capri- 
cious and avaricious, and he went out of ofifice 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 1/ 

under charges of oppression, extortion, and pecula- 
tion, all of which were probably well founded. 
It was he who, first of all colonial governors, 
urged the arbitrary taxation of the colonies by 
England, the " taxation without representation " 
which was a few years later the rock upon which 
the British empire was split asunder. In justice 
to him, however, it must be remembered that the 
first taxes he thus urged were for the prosecution 
of colonial wars, and that he had some showing of 
justification for that proposal in the niggardly and 
incredibly short-sighted refusal of some of the col- cy 
onies to supply the funds which were necessary 
for their own defence. In many of his character- 
istics Dinwiddle resembled what we might call a 
pocket edition of those later and greater empire 
builders, Warren Hastings and Cecil Rhodes, not 
only in their faults but also in their merits, or 
in the merits of their achievements. For it was 
to him that the fulfilment of Spottswood's high 
designs was eventually committed, and it was 
through his pertinacity that they were forced into 
execution. 

The method of conquest chosen was the familiar 
one, especially in English history, of a chartered 
company. In the middle years of the eighteenth 
century numerous companies were formed for the 
exploiting of the transmontane regions. Only one 
of these calls for notice. It was known as the 
Ohio Company. It was a Virginian organization. ^ 
c 



1 8 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

It was composed of Virginians, among its mem- 
bers being Augustine and Lawrence Washington, 
the father and brother of George Washington, and 
Thomas Lee. It was chartered by Virginia, under 
Virginia's interpretation of the Treaty of Lan- 
caster, of 1744, giving to that colony all territory 
at the west, as far as the Mississippi River. The 
French interpreted that as meaning only the lands 
south of the Ohio River, — to wit, the present states 
of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. But 
Dinwiddie, as avaricious of land as of pelf, insisted 
that it meant the lands north of that river too, all 
the way up to the Lakes, including western Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wis- 
consin — a goodly dominion, indeed ! It was to 
secure that inheritance by actual possession that 
he sent the Ohio Company forth in the winter of 
1750-51, across the mountains, into the valleys of 
the Ohio and Miami, to build a fort at the point 
where the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers 
unite to form the Ohio. These proceedings were 
authorized by Dinwiddie personally, and were 
again approved after the enterprise was well begun 
by an act of the Virginia legislature in February, 
1752. 

The venture did not pass unchallenged. Spotts- 
wood's plan had been to strike early, before the 
French were prepared to resist. It was now too 
late. The French were by this tim.e prepared and 
alert They promptly disputed and denied the 



THE OPENIMG OF THE DOOR 1 9 

right of the Ohio Company to enter the territory- 
north of the Ohio River, and warned it off as a 
trespasser. More than that, with the readiness 
and decision which marked the French adminis- 
tration of those days and which too often did 
not exist in the EngUsh government, at least in 
colonial affairs, France moved to make her pro- 
tests and warnings effective with force and arms. 
Thus menaced, the Ohio Company appealed to 
Dinwiddle. In such a case Spottswood would 
probably have led an army across the hills with- 
out delay. Dinwiddle bade the pioneers stand 
firm while he sought aid from England. He did 
seek aid, but in vain. The English government 
would do nothing. Despite the earnest pleas of 
Townshend and others that it should make its 
ownership of the Ohio Valley effective, it con- 
tented itself with an academic expression of 
opinion that the territory in dispute belonged to 
Virginia. The practical enforcement of that 
opinion it left entirely to Virginia herself. Had 
it acted years before, on Spottswood's suggestion, 
it would probably have gained its ground without 
a serious blow. Had it acted promptly and reso- 
lutely in answer to Dinwiddle's appeal, it might 
have won at comparatively Httle cost. But it 
hesitated and dallied, and shirked responsibility, 
and thus, like all cowards, laid up for itself wrath 
against a day of wrath — in this case, one of the 
most dreadful days of wrath in history. 



20 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

In this dilemma, menaced by France and prac- 
tically deserted by England, Dinwiddle displayed 
the two redeeming virtues of his generally con- 
temptible character. He was indomitable in 
purpose, and he was shrewd to the point of in- 
spiration in his choice of men. He again bade 
the Ohio Company to hold its ground, which 
was right and wise, and he selected as his right- 
hand man in supporting that company a young 
Virginia gentleman, hunter, and adventurer, of 
gentle English ancestry, named George Wash- 
ington ; which was probably the wisest and most 
fruitful thing he ever did. Washington, then just 
twenty-one years old, entered into the business 
with enthusiasm. His family, in the persons of 
his father and elder brother, both now dead, had 
been concerned in the organization of the Ohio 
Company. Lawrence Washington had indeed be- 
come, before his death in the summer of 1752, the 
chief manager of that corporation; and George's 
almost passionate love for him naturally inclined 
him strongly to take up his work and press it to 
completion. George Washington had already, 
on his own account, followed in the footsteps of 
Spottswood into the Shenandoah Valley, and was 
one of the most accomplished hunters, woodsmen, 
and frontier rangers of his time. Lord Fairfax 
well described him, in commending him to Din- 
widdle, as daring, intrepid, adventurous, yet rich 
in prudence and the sense of responsibility. 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 21 

Dinwiddie was glad to find such a man, and 
Washington was no less glad to get such a 
commission. 

It was in the late fall of 1753 that Washington, 
accompanied by Jacob Van Braam, a Dutch sol- 
dier of fortune who had taught him the use of 
arms, and Christopher Gist, an expert frontiers- 
man, and a number of servants, set forth on his 
momentous errand. He was commissioned merely 
to go in a diplomatic way to the outposts of the 
Ohio Company and thence to the headquarters 
of the French commander, to remonstrate and 
negotiate with the latter, and all the while to 
keep his eyes and ears open to learn all he could 
about the situation and the strength and plans of 
the French. All these things he did. He en- 
couraged the English settlers. He ingratiated 
himself with many of the Indians. He visited 
Fort Le Boeuf and had an interview with the 
French commander, the gallant and accomplished 
Gardeur de Saint Pierre; and while the latter was 
writing a letter for him to take back to Dinwiddie, 
Washington took notes of the plan and condition 
of the fort. Then the little party returned to 
Virginia, through many perils and hardships, 
and Washington was the hero of the day in that 
colony. 

The reply which Washington brought back from 
Saint Pierre was, however, a peremptory demand 
for the withdrawal of all the English from the 



22 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

territory north of the Ohio River, and practically 
a notice that if they did not voluntarily and 
promptly withdraw they would be forcibly ex- 
pelled. Washington had known this when he 
left him, and although the two had parted in 
friendship they had both realized that they were 
upon the verge of a struggle to the death. 
Washington had also made this report to the 
English pioneers at Pittsburg, who had there- 
upon hastened the completion of their fort and 
their preparations for war. On reaching Vir- 
ginia, therefore, Washington told Dinwiddle 
plainly that there was nothing to be done but 
to abandon the territory north of the Ohio, or 
to fight for it. In the face of such a crisis, 
Dinwiddle showed himself for the moment as 
resolute as Saint Pierre. He decided not to 
retreat ; to fight if must be, but at any rate not 
to retreat. Accordingly he began to prepare for 
a conflict with all his energy and with all the 
resources of his colony. Meantime he again ap- 
pealed to England for aid, and to the other 
colonies. The English ear proved to be as deaf 
as before, and the colonies were more ready with 
good wishes than with men or money. Most of 
the aid they would give was offered on terms 
unacceptable to Virginia or to Dinwiddle. There- 
upon Dinwiddle, driven to the wall, desperately 
determined to force the hand of the EngHsh 
government. He would kindle a fire which 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 23 

might scorch his own liouse, but which the 
English government would simply be compelled 
to extinguish. 

In such a Berserk venture as was now proposed, 
Spottswood would himself have led the van. That 
was the last thing Dinwiddle would do. Probably 
it was well that he did not, being by no means 
fitted for it. But he did far better. He turned 
again to Washington, and commissioned him as 
the knight-errant of imperial expansion. Before, 
he had sent him with only two comrades, on a 
peaceful errand ; now he would send him at 
the head of a substantial fighting force. So 
Washington was promoted from the rank of 
major to that of lieutenant-colonel, in a regi- 
ment of which Colonel Fry was the commander. 
After annoying delays, Washington finally set 
out on April 2, 1754, with two incomplete com- 
panies, leaving Colonel Fry to follow with the 
rest of the regiment as soon as the stupid and 
cantankerous colonial government should make 
it possible for him to do so. He had with him 
only 150 men, who were frankly described as 
" self-willed and ungovernable," and who had 
probably been selected because of those very 
qualities, as well fitting them for the desperate 
undertaking before them. He headed straight 
for Pittsburg, where a little company under 
Captain Trent was supposed to be holding out 
against the menace of the French advance. Half- 



24 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

way thither, however, he was met with the news 
that the French had come down in overwhehiiing 
numbers and captured the place without firing 
a shot, and had packed all the Enghsh back to 
Virginia. A less resolute man in those circum- 
stances would have returned, or at least have 
halted and waited for further instructions. Not 
so Washington. The disastrous news served 
only to hasten him forward. His original plan 
had been to go to the fort at Pittsburg, complete 
it, man it, defend it, and " to make prisoners, 
kill, or destroy all who interrupted the Enghsh 
settlements." Now the fort had fallen. He 
would therefore go on and recapture it if possible, 
and at any rate carry out the remainder of his 
programme, dealing sternly with all who stood 
in the way. Truly, it was an iron hand that 
the English colonists were thrusting forth into 
the wilderness. This expedition of Washington's 
was scarcely larger than the merry hunting party 
which Spottswood had led through Swift Run 
Gap a generation before, and its ultimate aim 
was the same, but years of fatuous delay had 
made the circumstances and the actual work in 
hand far different. 

The goal was not now the banks of the Shen- 
andoah, but the headwaters of the Ohio. It was 
not the languid season of autumn, but that of 
opening and inspiring spring, when the blood of 
the warrior quickens for battle as that of the lover 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 2$ 

for love. It was a hunting party, but the game 
was not grouse and pheasants but Frenchmen and 
their Indian allies. It was in May, 1754, that 
Washington and his little party reached Great 
Meadows, near the Monongahela. He was tre- 
mendously in earnest. He was angry with the 
Virginia Assembly for not having sent Fry on 
with more troops, and for not rising to the needs 
of the occasion. Whether or not he appreciated 
the danger of his own position does not appear. 
At any rate he showed no fear, and his wrath 
against the Assembly was not for failing to sup- 
port him, but for failing to care for the interests 
of the colony. His fighting blood was up, with a 
premonition of the spirit which cowed the traitor 
Lee at Monmouth and which triumphed over both 
man and nature in the unrivalled victory at Tren- 
ton. He had come thither to fight, and he wel- 
comed the prospect. The chosen place was, in 
his own words, " a charming field for an encoun- 
ter." His heart was as light and confident as was 
Spottswood's in his picnic revelry on the banks 
of the Shenandoah, and he welcomed the approach 
of the French forces with which he was to contend 
for the mastery of an empire. Indeed, he grew 
impatient for their arrival, and pushed forward to 
meet them. 

It was on May 28 that the actual impact came. 
Tradition tells us that Washington not only gave 
the command to fire but himself set the example 



26 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION- 

with a musket, firing the first shot in the engage- 
ment. It was a small skirmish. In fifteen min- 
utes all was over. Ten Frenchmen were killed 
and twenty-one captured, and Washington had 
won his first victory in war. But that was not 
all. That musket shot of Washington's was not 
merely the first in the little battle of Great Mead- 
ows. It was as truly as that at Concord Bridge a 
"shot heard round the world." It was the first 
shot in that mighty Seven Years' War which set 
the whole civilized world aflame, transformed the 
maps of two continents, and decided irrevocably 
the destiny of North America. 

Washington was the victor at Great Meadows. 
But his little force was far too feeble to hold its 
ground. The French and their Indian allies came 
pouring down upon him in overwhelming numbers. 
He was thrown upon the defensive, completed Fort 
Necessity at Great Meadows, and made a brave 
stand against a foe that outnumbered him four to 
one. Unfortunately, too, he did not Hsten to the 
advice of friendly Indians nor make the best use 
of the aid they offered him. Happily for him, the 
French were afraid of him and had no desire to 
fight if they could get rid of him in any other way. 
So, after some desultory skirmishing, the French 
sought a parley, and offered to let Washington 
and his men march away with their arms and ban- 
ners, without the humiliation of a surrender, on 
the sole condition that they would not return to 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 2/ 

the Ohio for at least a year. Washington promptly 
accepted these terms, being out of provisions, know- 
ing he was not strong enough to fight, and realizing 
that it would take at least a year to prepare an ex- 
pedition strong enough to conquer the country. So 
he marched back to Virginia, and that campaign 
was over ; upon which the most pungent and not 
the least true comment was that of the Seneca chief, 
Thanacarishon, the friend of Washington, to wit, 
that " the French acted like cowards and the Eng- 
lish like fools." 

Thus the great war began. In America it was 
the French and Indian War; in Europe it was 
the Seven Years' War. Of a truth, the expansion- 
ist governor of Virginia had kindled a flame which 
it would take mightier hands than his to extin- 
guish. They must extinguish it, too, or it would 
roll through the mountain passes down to the sea 
and consume in its fury the English coast settle- 
ments, just as it quickly did those on the Ohio 
and the Miami. For immediately after Washing- 
ton's evacuation of Fort Necessity the French 
completed their work. They fulfilled to the let- 
ter Saint Pierre's menace to Dinwiddle. Every 
English settler who did not hasten to leave the 
territory north of the Ohio was driven out, or 
slain. More than that, the same process was ex- 
tended to the territory south of that river, which 
had formerly been conceded to the Enghsh. Be- 
fore the end of the year there was not an English 



28 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

settlement nor an English flag west of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. In all that mighty region, 
from the Alleghanies to the Rockies, and from the 
lakes to the Gulf, there was no flag but that which 
flaunted the triumphant lilies of France. So Eng- 
land herself was roused to enter the struggle. 
Braddock marched to his fatal field. Wolfe 
scaled the Heights of Abraham, to conquer and 
to die. The English colonists were roused, too, 
and from Maine to Georgia learned the art of war. 
And in the end, after one of the costliest wars in 
all that century of slaughter, the English flag 
became as supreme in the Ohio Valley as the 
French had been. More than that, it replaced 
the French flag in Canada. The French territo- 
ries at the mouth of the Mississippi and between 
that river and the Rocky Mountains were trans- 
ferred to Spain. And while at the beginning of 
the war France owned the largest part of North 
America, at its close she did not possess one sin- 
gle inch of land upon the continent. The result 
of Spottswood's picnic, of Dinwiddle's mixture of 
stubbornness and rashness, and of Washington's 
command to fire at Great Meadows, was that the 
English coast strip was widened to the Missis- 
sippi, and was lengthened to the Arctic Sea. 
There was no longer any question as to racial 
dominance on the North American continent. 
The only question now was whether the empire 
thus secured for the English-speaking race should 



THE OPENING OF THE DOOR 29 

remain under the English crown, or should be- 
come an independent realm. The answer was not 
long postponed. It came in 1776, and was com- 
pleted in 1783. It was, moreover, largely dictated 
by those very processes of winning the Mississippi 
Valley for England. In the work of winning that 
region the seeds of England's loss of it were sown. 
Those seeds were several, and were varied. It 
was to meet the expenses of that war that Eng- 
land adopted the fatal policy of levying taxes at 
her own will upon her colonies. That was one of 
the prime causes of colonial discontent and ulti- 
mate revolt. Another was that the English gov- 
ernment at the end of the war arbitrarily annexed 
the region north of the Ohio to Canada, instead of 
to Virginia. She did so on the ground that it had 
been a part of the French province of Quebec, 
and therefore should retain that connection when 
both it and Quebec came under her rule. But 
Virginia never admitted either that it had belonged 
to Quebec or that the EngHsh act thus annexing 
it was valid. She had sent Washington to take 
possession of it on the strength of the Treaty of 
Lancaster, which, she insisted, gave it all to her, 
and in that claim she was supported by the other 
colonies. Again, the colonies in the French and 
Indian War learned how to fight, and how to rely 
upon themselves. They learned to turn away 
from the shore and from their dependence upon 
the sea and the aid and safety the sea might bring 



30 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

them, and to see that they were now the possess- 
ors of a domain continental in extent and suffi- 
cient unto itself in independence of all other lands. 
They remembered that at the beginning of the 
war England had refused to aid them in winning 
the near west, or even in safeguarding their own 
boundaries, while at its close she deprived them 
of the legitimate fruits of victory, and they took to 
thinking that if thus they were to be thrown upon 
their own resources whenever it pleased the mother 
country, they might as well rely upon their own 
resources all the time, and themselves secure the 
results of their labors. Finally, that war gave 
them leaders in both war and statecraft. It was 
one of the most impressive turns of fate that the 
very man who fired the first shot in winning the 
empire for England should be the leader in wrest- 
ing it from her again, and that the old home of 
the man who first dreamed England's dream of 
empire in North America should be the scene 
of the final and irrevocable waking from that 
dream. 



CHAPTER II 

SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 

The War of the Revolution was chiefly fought, 
for obvious reasons, in the Atlantic littoral. There 
were the masses of population, the organized 
governments, the industries, the fortifications, the 
ports at which the English troops must land in 
their campaign of attempted repression. We 
have seen, however, that the region beyond the 
mountains played an important part in the processes 
and the influences which led to the war. It was 
also the scene of some of the operations of that 
war, minor from the military point of view but 
decidedly major from the point of view of the 
nation-building statesman, and in the final settle- 
ment of the issues and results of the war it held a 
paramount place. Upon it turned the whole ques- 
tion of peace-making. Upon it was based and 
according to its disposition was framed the treaty 
which restored peace and secured for the United 
States universal recognition as an independent and 
sovereign power. 

Especially were these things true of the region 
north of the Ohio River. .That south of the river, 
composing the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, 

31 



32 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

was not so much the subject of controversy. As 
we have seen, it was, prior to the Seven Years' 
War, practically conceded to the English colonies 
by France, though during that war it was seized 
by her in revenge for the English invasion of the 
country north of the river. At the end of that war 
it was restored to English rule and occupancy, 
whereupon England unhesitatingly assigned it to 
the colonies, to wit, to Virginia and North Carolina, 
upon which it directly abutted at the west. While 
she tried to deprive the colonies of the territory 
north of the Ohio by annexing it to Canada, she 
left that south of the Ohio to the colonies, and it 
was therefore a matter of course, never seriously 
questioned by England, though it was by Spain 
and France, that the southern country should share 
the fate of the coast colonies. If the latter won 
their independence, Kentucky and Tennessee 
would belong to them. This understanding was 
greatly strengthened by the course of affairs be- 
tween the Seven Years' War and the Revolution, 
when settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas 
flocked into Kentucky and Tennessee in great 
numbers. Indeed, such invasions and settlements 
were made on a considerable scale at an earlier 
date. In 1 748-1 750 Dr. Thomas Walker, of 
Virginia, discovered the Cumberland River, the 
Cumberland Mountains, and the Cumberland Gap, 
and gave them the names which they still bear, in 
honor of that duke who was the " proud Cumber- 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 33 

land " of CuUoden and the " bloody Duke of 
Cumberland " who won fame in defeat by his 
mighty stand against overwhelming odds at Fonte- 
noy. Christopher Gist, who was Washington's 
companion in his first visit to the Ohio Valley, 
explored the Kentucky River in 1751. Daniel 
Boone, of Pennsylvania, became a mighty hunter 
in Kentucky in 1769. 

From those years down to the Revolution other 
explorers, hunters, and settlers entered those 
regions and occupied them to such an extent that 
by June, 1778, they considered themselves numer- 
ous enough to be entitled to political recognition. 
Accordingly on June 8 of that year they held 
a convention and elected two delegates to the 
Colonial Assembly of Virginia, and sent them to 
Williamsburg, the Virginian capital, with a petition 
for the incorporation of Kentucky into the colony 
of Virginia as a new county. These delegates 
reached Williamsburg just in time to find that the 
assembly had declared its independence of Eng- 
land and had adjourned. Thus balked in their 
mission, they waited until the next session of the 
assembly, only then to be denied seats in it. 
However, on December 8 of that year the assem- 
bly did finally incorporate the western part of 
Kentucky as a county of Virginia, just six months 
after the Kentucky convention. The Kentucky 
delegates then returned home. 

One of these delegates was George Rogers 



34 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Clark, a notable figure in the history of American 
expansion, and a remarkable combination of hero 
and knave. He came of a good Virginian family, 
and was well educated, but his practical training 
in warfare and public services had not been of the 
best character. He had been a companion and in 
some respects a pupil of the famous or notorious 
Michael Cresap. The latter, a Marylander, had 
settled on the Upper Ohio at the end of the Seven 
Years' War and had figured conspicuously in Lord 
Dunmore's war. Of his patriotism, valor, and 
prowess there was no question, and some of his 
services were of great value. But he was ruthless 
and cruel, and whether deservedly or not incurred 
the reproach of some acts of sheer savagery. 
Clark was morally superior to Cresap, at least in 
this early part of his career, and was not his 
inferior in strength and courage. In personal 
appearance he was a stalwart blond giant, and in 
spirit he was adventurous, resolute, fearless, and 
ambitious. It is not infrequently the case that a 
man who dwells much in the forest or the desert, 
and thus communes with Nature in her vast and 
wild aspects, becomes imbued with ideas at once 
gloomy and grandiose. So it was with Clark, 
always a dreamer and schemer. On his way home 
to Kentucky, by way of the Ohio River, he brooded 
amid the solitudes of the great wilderness upon 
mighty themes — the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, the prospect of creating a new nation, the 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 35 

possibilities of extending the borders of that nation 
almost inimitably to the north and west. The 
dream of empire possessed him, and he cherished 
it, at once with the adventurer's daring and with 
the mathematician's calculation (he was a surveyor 
by profession). So he conceived on that journey 
the enterprise which made him famous, and in the 
completion of which it would have been well for 
his fame had he perished. He saw that if the 
colonies succeeded in winning their independence 
from England, it would be essential to their peace 
and progress that they should possess the territory 
at their backs, between the mountains and the 
lakes. Every reason that required England to 
wrest that country from France now required the 
colonies to win it from England. 

Self-contained and self-reliant, Clark kept his 
own counsel until the time was opportune and his 
ground was sure. All through the spring and 
summer of 1777 he brooded and planned and 
investigated. He sent two young hunters north, 
along the Wabash and to the old French settle- 
ments in IlHnois, to " see how the land lay " and to 
report to him all they could learn, though not even 
to them did he impart an inkling of his real pur- 
pose. Finally, with the ground thus fully surveyed 
and with his whole campaign mapped out, he bade 
his neighbors adieu, and in the fall of 1777 set out 
again for Virginia. His fellow Kentuckians sup- 
posed he was merely going to enter the colonial 



36 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

army. Instead, early in December, he went to 
Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia, and 
unfolded to him his scheme of invading and con- 
quering the Northwest Territory. The time seemed 
propitious. Burgoyne had been defeated and 
captured at Saratoga, and the Americans were 
flushed with confidence. One bold blow was all 
that was needed, and all the land to the Great 
Lakes would be won. 

But there were diilficulties in the way which 
daunted even Henry's fiery spirit, though never 
Clark's. The matter ought to be laid before the 
legislature, for authority and for the granting of 
supplies. Yet that would be fatal to success, for 
it would probably mean delay, and it would almost 
certainly mean a sacrifice of that secrecy which 
was essential to success. Once the scheme got to 
British ears, a redcoat army would be rushed into 
the territory. But Clark rose superior to all such 
considerations. He cared little about authoriza- 
tion. The word of the governor, a little ready 
money, and some promises of reward contingent 
upon success, were all he asked. Promptness and 
intrepidity were far more essential than acts of 
legislature and formal appropriations. In the ^ 
end, Henry was won over to Clark's view. A 
hurried council of five was held : Henry and 
Clark, with Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and 
George Wythe — a secret syndicate of expansion- 
ists. Clark's proposals were approved. A fund ' 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 37 

of twelve hundred pounds in colonial paper money 
was raised, and Jefferson, Mason, and Wythe prom- 
ised to use their influence to secure an ex post 
facto grant of three hundred acres of land in the con- 
quered territory for each member of the expedition. 
As for authorization, that was not lacking. 
Henry was competent to give it. The Virginia 
constitution of 1778 declared that "the governor 
of this state for the time being shall be com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and navy and all the 
military forces of this state, by sea and land, and 
shall have full power ... to lead and conduct 
them, and with them encounter, repulse, repel, 
resist, and pursue, by force of arms . . . within 
and without the limits of this state, and also to 
kill, slay, destroy, if necessary, and conquer, by all 
fitting ways, enterprise, and means, all and every 
such person as shall at any time hereafter, in a 
hostile manner, attempt the destruction, invasion, 
detriment, or annoyance of this state." Surely 
that was sufficiently comprehensive. If the terri- 
tory north of the Ohio belonged to Virginia, Henry 
had a right to send troops to expel the invaders. 
If it did not belong to Virginia, he had a right to 
send troops outside the state, into a foreign land, 
to conquer or destroy all who threatened the bor- 
ders of Virginia with annoyance. Thus early did 
the founders of the RepubHc recognize and de- 
clare the right of foreign conquest when necessary 
for the safeguarding of their own land. 



38 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Henry, however, did not give Clark merely an 
order of campaign. He gave him two separate 
and distinct orders, one public and the other secret 
and confidential. The public order directed him 
to return to Kentucky and make necessary prep- 
arations for its defence. That, openly pro- 
claimed, soon got to English ears and deceived 
the EngHsh commanders as to Clark's real pur- 
pose. The secret orders, dated at Williamsburg, 
January 2, 1778, ran as follows : — 

" You are to proceed with all convenient speed 
to raise seven companies of soldiers, to consist of 
fifty men each, officered in the usual manner and 
armed most properly for this enterprise ; and, with 
this force, attack the British post at Kaskaskia. 
It is conjectured that there are many pieces of 
cannon and military stores to a considerable 
amount at that place, the taking and preservation 
of which would be a valuable acquisition to the 
state. . . . During the whole transaction you are 
to take especial care to keep the true destination 
of your force secret ; its success depends upon 
this. ... It is earnestly desired that you show 
humanity to such British subjects and other per- 
sons as fall into your hands. If the white in- 
habitants will give undoubted evidence of their 
attachment to this state (for it is certain they live 
within its limits), by taking the test prescribed by 
law, and by every other way and means in their 
power, let them be treated as fellow citizens. . . . 



SECUBLVG THE OPEN DOOR 39 

But if these people will not accede to these reason- 
able demands, they must feel the miseries of war." 
With these letters in his pocket Clark was, he 
said, clothed with all the authority he could wish. 
Accordingly he set out, on February 4, 1778, on 
his momentous mission. It was a crucial time. 
It was the winter of Valley Forge. The pitiable 
remnant of Washington's army was suffering mar- 
tyrdom. The Continental Congress was at its 
nadir of incompetence and irresolution. Lee had 
tried his worst to betray the country. The in- 
famous Conway and his scurrilous crew were like- 
wise doing their worst, while Gates, wearing the 
laurels won by Schuyler and Arnold at Saratoga, 
was letting vanity, jealousy, and ambition draw 
him to the very brink of treason. The American 
cause was in a desperate phght, and sorely needed 
revival through some heroic stroke such as that at 
Trenton a year before. That stroke was to be 
given by Clark's Httle forlorn hope, in the far 
western wilderness. It was, of course, impossible 
to look to Washington or to any of the forces east 
of the mountains for aid. Not a man could be 
spared there. So Clark recruited his companies 
from among the hardy frontiersmen of Kentucky 
and West Virginia — as many as he could. He 
had indeed been directed by Henry so to do. 
After weeks of effort he found it impossible to 
raise the seven companies, or 350 men, authorized 
by Henry. The population of those regions was 



40 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

sparse, and it would not do to withdraw from 
home all the able-bodied men, lest the settlements 
be defenceless against Indian raids. He suc- 
ceeded at last in getting together some 200 men. 
Of these he took only 150, to whom a score 
more were added as he made his way down 
the Ohio Valley toward the place of final embark- 
ment upon that river. That place was at the 
Falls of the Ohio, now marked with the city of 
Louisville. It was on June 24 that he put his 
men aboard the boats and started downstream. 
At the moment of embarkation there was an 
eclipse of the sun. Some of his men regarded 
it as an evil omen. Clark, playing upon their 
superstition, assured them it was on the contrary 
a good omen, seeing that there was darkness 
for only a few moments and then the full bright- 
ness of the sun again. Thus reassured, the little 
expedition pursued its memorable way, while Clark 
was doing some hard and fast thinking concerning 
his plan of campaign. 

His instructions were to go to Kaskaskia. But 
he had planned to capture Vincennes on the way 
thither. He was a man wont to interpret orders 
according to circumstances. Soon after leaving 
the Falls of the Ohio, however, he learned to his 
dismay that Vincennes had been so strongly reen- 
forced that it would be madness to attack it at that 
time with his few men. There seemed nothing 
to do, therefore, but to obey orders and go on to 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 4 1 

Kaskaskia. But if he did so, he would be leaving 
the garrison of Vincennes behind him to cut his 
lines of communication and isolate him. That 
would never do, unless he could strike Kaskaskia 
quickly and get back in time to save his lines. 
Upon this desperate course he decided. He 
pushed on to Kaskaskia with all possible speed, 
and on the auspicious Fourth of July captured it 
without a blow. The commander, garrison, and 
people there were almost entirely French. They 
had meant to be loyal to England, but they were 
completely overawed by the advent of Clark and 
his frontiersmen, whom they considered far more 
formidable than so many painted Indians. When 
they found Clark was as humane as he was daring, 
they took the oath of allegiance to Virginia, and 
were ready themselves to organize for defence 
against the English. Thus easily and satisfac- 
torily was the capture of Kaskaskia effected. Had 
Clark then slavishly followed instructions, he 
would have settled down in a fortified post on 
the Mississippi, and probably soon have been 
besieged and captured by the English. But he 
was not that kind of man. 

There was need of immediate action, and of 
action dictated by circumstances on the spot. The 
English commander at Detroit was Henry Hamil- 
ton. He was bold, ambitious, energetic, unscrupu- 
lous, and cruel — a formidable antagonist. He 
had, moreover, much influence over the Indians, 



42 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and had formed an alliance with them and organ- 
ized them against the colonists. He was plan- 
ning to attack Fort Pitt, at the head of the Ohio, 
when he heard that Clark was audaciously taking 
the aggressive on the lower reaches of that river. 
Forthwith he hastened in person down to Vin- 
cennes, on the Wabash, leaving Detroit on October 
7, with 500 men, white and red. At Vincennes 
he roused the Indians and sent them against 
Clark and all Americans, offering rewards for 
American scalps but none for American pris- 
oners. In a short time Clark seemed to be sur- 
rounded in the wilderness by hostile and savage 
bands, and cut off from all aid from Virginia, even 
had any been sent. His destruction seemed cer- 
tain. But that daring and resourceful man was 
equal to the emergency. He had increased his 
force somewhat by recruiting at Kaskaskia and 
elsewhere. Part of his men he put into fortified 
posts. A small company, under John Rogers, he 
put at the mouth of the Wabash, with orders to let 
no enemy pass. Then, with only 130 picked 
men, he struck across country, through the woods, 
straight for Vincennes. That place was at the 
time, he learned, lightly garrisoned, most of 
the English troops and Indian levies being out in 
the woods, ranging the country in quest of Clark 
himself. The Wabash was in flood, surrounding 
the town with a temporary lake, and to that Vin- 
cennes trusted for protection. Hamilton did not 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 43 

realize that Clark and his forest rangers were 
amphibians ! 

Such was Clark's opportunity, and masterfully 
did he improve it. Speed and stealth were the 
order of the day. For two days the men went 
without food, though in a forest filled with game, 
fearing lest a musket-shot might warn the English 
of their approach. Presently they came to the 
" drowned lands," and for miles marched through 
water waist deep, in some places shoulder deep, 
and it was midwinter. On February 23 at dusk 
they reached dry land. There was no time for 
resting and for building fires at which to dry their 
wet and freezing clothes. Vigorous action would 
dry them better than anything else. Without a 
moment's delay they displayed themselves, so 
arranged as to appear like an army, and then, 
with a summons to surrender, moved forward upon 
the town of Vincennes, to the amazement and con- 
sternation of the people. There was no resisting 
men who had come through that wintry flood, and 
the town surrendered without the firing of a shot. 
The fort, where were Hamilton and his soldiers, 
was adjacent to the town. Clark was careful not 
to let news of his arrival get thither until he was 
ready to fight. But that was very soon. Before 
midnight he had a line of rifle pits and rude in- 
trenchments around the fort, and opened a harass- 
ing fire upon it. In the morning he sent a note to 
Hamilton, couched in these peremptory words: — 



44 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

" In order to save yourself from the impending 
storm that now threatens you, I order you immedi- 
ately to surrender yourself, with all your garrison, 
stores, etc. For if I am obhged to storm, you may 
depend on such treatment as is justly due to a 
murderer. Beware of destroying stores of any 
kind, or any papers or letters that are in your pos- 
session, or hurting one house in town, for, by 
heavens ! if you do, there shall be no mercy shown 
you." 

This was intemperate language, but was proba- 
bly justifiable, for Hamilton had infamously vio- 
lated the laws of civilized warfare in inciting his 
Indian levies to the murder of non-combatants, 
including women and children. What is certain is 
that Hamilton was panic-stricken, fearing that he 
would be summarily dealt with for his crimes. He 
replied at first orally and then in writing, seeking 
terms. But Clark would listen to nothing but un- 
conditional surrender. Finally, in the middle of 
the afternoon, Hamilton agreed to surrender him- 
self and his whole command, as prisoners of war, 
giving as his reasons for so doing, " the remoteness 
from succor, the state and quantity of provisions, 
the unanimity of officers and men in its expediency, 
the honorable terms allowed, and the confidence in 
a generous enemy." The next day the surrender 
was effected, and the English soldiers were re- 
leased on parole, while Hamilton and the other 
officers were sent as prisoners of war to Kentucky 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 45 

and thence to Virginia. A few days later forty- 
men with supplies for the fort were captured by 
Clark as they came down the Wabash. Thus the 
conquest of Vincennes was completed, with cost to 
the Americans of only one man slightly wounded. 

Had Clark been reenforced, as he expected to 
be, he would have pushed on to Detroit and have 
taken Canada in flank. But that was not to be. 
A regiment was organized for his aid, under Evan 
Shelby, but was diverted to good work elsewhere. 
So Clark, acting under the orders of Jefferson, who 
was now governor of Virginia, went on to the 
Mississippi River and built Fort Jefferson, just 
below the mouth of the Ohio, in the spring of 
1780, thus estabhshing the American claim to that 
great river. Nor was that the only American post 
on the Mississippi. At the very time when Clark 
had set out for Kaskaskia, in February, 1778, a 
smaller party of adventurers went from Pittsburg 
down the Ohio and the Mississippi, in boats, as far 
as Natchez, where, on February 18, they raised the 
American flag and proclaimed possession of the 
country in the name of the United States. Spain, 
whose territories they were thus invading, took 
little notice of them at the time ; they seemed too 
insignificant ; but later she strenuously though 
vainly protested against their act and its results. 

In such fashion did the thirteen colonies, in 
the midst of the throes of the Revolution, enter 
into practical possession of the goodly " hinter- 



46 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

land " which they had helped England to wrest 
from France. Thus did they fasten open, for 
themselves and for their posterity, that door of 
empire through whose crevices Spottswood had 
peeped and at which the young Washington had 
knocked so rudely. Thus did they expand their 
coast strip westward to the Mississippi River, 
claiming, and promising to make good their claim 
to, the whole continent, from the Atlantic to the 
Mississippi, and from the St. Mary's River to the 
Great Lakes. Upon that goodly realm, with all 
its further potentiaHties, presently to be recognized 
as necessities, they maintained a masterful hold, 
until the capitulation at Yorktown and the ensuing 
Treaty of Paris confirmed it to them forever. 

In the making of that treaty the chief point of 
controversy was the confirmation or repudiation of 
Clark's conquest of the region north of the Ohio 
River, and therein, after the first passage of words, 
curiously enough our ally was the very power with 
which we had been at war, while our chief foe was 
the power which had been our ally in that war. 
The English government displayed in the making 
of peace some of that wisdom which it so much 
lacked before and during the war. It realized that 
the colonies were lost to it forever. But it still 
held Canada and various West India islands, and 
it realized that if it was to hold these permanently 
and develop a large commerce with America, it 
would be far better for it for the colonies to possess 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 47 

the Mississippi Valley than for France or Spain 
to have it. Indeed, it would be to its advantage 
to have the colonies develop themselves into a 
strong and extensive English-speaking nation, 
which would in time dominate the continent, rather 
than have them a stunted and feeble state at the 
mercy of France and Spain. 

For those reasons England was inclined to make 
a treaty of peace on liberal terms. She first tried, 
naturally enough, to regain the territory north of 
the Ohio for herself. All south of that river she 
conceded unhesitatingly to the United States, but 
all north of it she wanted to retain, or to regain 
as a part of Canada. To that the United States 
would not listen for a moment. Its peace commis- 
sioners would not even discuss the matter. Frank- 
lin, the most conciliatory and least aggressive of 
them, when the subject was broached by the Eng- 
lish commissioners, unhesitatingly rephed, " No, 
sir ! If you insist upon that, we go back to York- 
town ! " Faced with such resolution on the part 
of Franklin, and knowing that his two colleagues. 
Jay and Adams, were if possible even more deter- 
mined upon that point, the English government 
gracefully yielded and practically signified its 
willingness to surrender the whole eastern half of 
the Mississippi Valley, up to the lakes, to the 
United States. Botta, in his " History of the 
American War," strangely says that this agree- 
ment " brought within the territory of the United 



48 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

States immense countries, lakes and rivers, to 
which, up to that time, they had never pretended 
any sort of claim." As a matter of fact, the United 
States had ever since the Seven Years' War ex- 
plicitly and strenuously claimed it all. 

The treaty was not, however, to be made simply 
between England and the United States. Had 
such been the case, it would speedily have been 
concluded in satisfactory fashion. But France had 
to be consulted. She had been our ally in the 
war, and was supposed to be our sincere friend. 
Accordingly it was agreed that the United States 
should not sign a treaty with England until France 
and England had also come to terms. Moreover, 
Congress, believing in the disinterested friendship 
of France, and having an exalted opinion of the 
wisdom and astuteness of French diplomats, cate- 
gorically instructed the three American commis- 
sioners to be guided and governed by French 
counsels in all the negotiations. Truly, America 
has cause to thank God that her commissioners 
had the sense and manhood, when it came to the 
sticking-point, to disobey and violate those instruc- 
tions ! For France was strongly opposed to the 
granting of the American claims to the territory 
beyond the Alleghany Mountains, and Spain, be- 
tween whom and France a working understanding 
existed, was still more bitter against us. 

Spain particularly wanted to keep the United 
States shut away from the Mississippi River, so 




TlIK I'AHTITIOMXU PKOl'oyHD IJV 
SI'A IN AxND FKANCE IN 1783-83. 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 49 

that she might herself have a monopoly of that 
stream. She proposed that all the territory south 
of the Ohio River, excepting perhaps West Vir- 
ginia and the eastern parts of Kentucky and 
Tennessee, be given to her, and all north of it to 
England, thus leaving the United States bounded 
by the Chattahoochee, Cumberland, and Ohio 
rivers. She also urged that England should 
retain for herself Rhode Island or some other 
point of vantage midway on the American coast, 
cutting the coast-line of the United States into 
two ; which latter suggestion England indignantly 
rejected, on the ground that it would involve her 
m breach of faith. France agreed with Spain as 
to the disposition of the inland territory. She did 
not venture to ask for a retrocession of it to her- 
self. That would have been too much of an 
affront to England, and would have aroused the 
vigorous opposition and resentment of that coun- 
try. But she urged earnestly that England should 
take for herself, as a part of Canada, all the terri- 
tory north of the Ohio River. 

The explanation of this treacherous and hostile 
attitude of the power which had just been our ally 
is not difficult to discern. Lafayette and other 
individual Frenchmen had been and were unques- 
tionably sincere and disinterested friends of Amer- 
ica. The French government was not. On the 
contrary, it regarded America with the same tradi- 
tional animosity that it cherished toward England, 



50 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and it entered into an alliance with us and gave 
us material aid, not because it loved America, 
but because it hated England and reckoned that 
to be the surest way of striking her a deadly blow. 
What would have suited France best would have 
been for England and the United States to fail 
to make terms of peace, to resume the war, and 
to keep on fighting until both were exhausted and 
ruined, and France was thus enabled to regain 
her American empire. Botta's opinion was that 
" though France would rather see America inde- 
pendent than reconciled with England, she relished 
the prospect of a long war between them still 
better than independence. Perhaps, even, she 
would have liked best of all a conquest by dint of 
arms, and the consequent subjugation, for, upon 
this hypothesis, the English colonies, ravaged and 
ruined, would have ceased to enrich the mother 
country by the benefits of their commerce in time 
of peace, and in time of war the English would no 
longer have found in their colonists those powerful 
auxiliaries who had so often succoured them with 
so much efificacy." It was thus that the French 
government delayed allying itself with the colonies, 
or giving them important aid, until late in the day, 
when it saw their victory was assured without 
it. We must also remember that in December, 
1777, the secretary of the French king's Council 
of State frankly declared to the United States, in 
the name of the king, that if the king gave aid 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 51 

to the colonies, he would do so " not pretending to 
act solely with a view to their particular interest, 
since beside the benevolence he bore them, it was 
manifest that the power of England would be 
diminished by the dismemberment of her colo- 
nies." 

It is not necessary here to rehearse the whole 
tortuous story of France's efforts to betray the 
United States in those negotiations. Her chief 
aim seemed to be to prevent so large a portion 
of the continent being surrendered to the young 
Republic. With a prophetic eye she saw that 
American access to the Mississippi River would 
in time mean American control of that river, and 
that in turn would lead to American conquest of 
the whole continent and American dominance 
of the Western hemisphere. She also saw in 
future the secret treaty of San Ildefonso. So on 
the one hand she strove to dissuade the American 
commissioners from insisting upon having the ter- 
ritories beyond the mountains, and on the other 
tried to persuade England to insist upon retaining 
the northern part of it for herself and giving the 
southern part to Spain, from which latter France 
could presently get it for herself. Failing that, 
she deliberately delayed and embarrassed the 
negotiations to the utmost of her power, aiming 
to convince the United States commissioners that 
the only way to make peace lay through accept- 
ance of her terms. It was a pretty trick, but it 



52 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

came hopelessly to grief and, to apply a French 
saying, the engineer of it was hoist with his own 
petard. 

For in these trying circumstances the patriotic 
statesmanship of John Jay rose to a supreme and 
triumphant height. He read the tangled lines of 
the French conspiracy with the eye of a master. 
He saw that he could make satisfactory terms with 
England if France were left out of the bargain, and 
could even force France to accept and approve 
those terms. True, there were those instructions 
of Congress in the way. But what were they in 
comparison with the welfare of the nation .-* In- 
structions were made, or unmade, to serve the 
nation, not to be its master. So Jay resolved to 
break orders. He laid his plan before Franklin, 
who was almost shocked, and at first entirely dis- 
approved it. " Would you break your instruc- 
tions .'' " asked FrankUn. " Yes ! " cried Jay, " as 
I break this pipe ! " And taking the long clay 
" churchwarden " from his lips he dashed it into 
fragments in the fireplace. 

Franklin, however, still hesitated. It would be 
a serious matter, he thought, to disobey Congress, 
under whose authority they were acting. More- 
over, it would grieve and offend France, whom he 
regarded as America's truest friend. It is not to 
be wondered at that Franklin was inclined to take 
such a view of the situation. He had long been a 
resident of Paris, and had there been the recipient 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 53 

of innumerable flattering attentions. If thus he 
was too much under French influence, and was in 
a measure blinded to the real designs of France, 
we may well pardon that " last infirmity of a noble 
mind." But Jay was resolute. As soon as he could 
see Adams, when the latter came over to Paris 
from The Hague, he laid his plan before him. 
The fiery New Englander, who had a few years 
before expressed impatience with Washington be- 
cause of his " Fabian tactics," instantly approved 
it and urged it upon Franklin with as much earnest- 
ness as Jay himself had shown. " It is glory," he 
afterward declared, " to have broken such infa- 
mous orders ! " Thus pressed by both his col- 
leagues, Franklin yielded. He would stand with 
Jay and Adams in defying Congress and in making 
terms with England without further consulting the 
French government. 

That course was thereupon pursued. Nor was 
that all. The French government was not only 
ignored. It was kept entirely in ignorance of what 
was going on. The French minister, Vergennes, 
supposed he had brought affairs to an impasse, 
where all negotiations were suspended, and where 
there was a probability that the American com- 
missioners would presently withdraw altogether 
and report the failure of their efforts. Yet at 
the very time when he was secretly exulting in 
such marplotry, the American and English com- 
missioners were amicably framing the treaty of 



54 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

peace and actually signing it. His first intimation 
of anything of the sort came to him when the 
completed and signed treaty was laid before him 
for his approval, which, in such circumstances, it 
was impossible for him to withhold. Great was 
his amazement, and no less were his chagrin and 
wrath, at thus finding that the negotiations which 
he thought he had blocked had actually been car- 
ried to a successful conclusion over his head, and 
that America had gained every point which he had 
so strenuously opposed. True, it was stipulated, 
as a matter of form, that the treaty should not 
become operative until it had been approved by 
France. But in those circumstances it was im- 
possible for France to do otherwise than to ap- 
prove it, or at least to assent to it, no matter how 
reluctantly or with how bad a grace. Her hand 
had been effectively forced by the very men whom 
she thought she could use as her puppets. Ver- 
gennes assumed an air of injured innocence and 
strove austerely to rebuke FrankHn for his " inex- 
plicable conduct." Franklin replied in a letter 
that showed him more than a match for the 
Frenchman in tact and diplomatic shrewdness, 
while of course France's secret understanding 
with Spain for the practical spoliation of America 
made her protests against alleged trickery and 
insincerity sound hopelessly hollow. 

The simple fact was that France had tried to 
play the part of lago. England and America 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 55 

both stood in the way of her ambition, and she 
reckoned that whether England crushed America, 
or America hopelessly weakened England, or yet 
each ruined the other, any way made for her ad- 
vantage. She had aided the colonies to secede 
and thus to weaken England. Her next move 
was to weaken the colonies by robbing them of 
their inland territories, and to embitter their rela- 
tions with England so as to keep the two countries 
always foes and probably cause a renewal of war 
between them. In the latter designs she failed, 
and her purposes were actually worse baffled than 
they would have been had she never made the 
treacherous trial. The United States got all it 
claimed, and possibly even more than the mini- 
mum with which it would have been satisfied, and 
the relations between this country and England 
were at once made particularly cordial, while 
France was to a degree shut out in the cold by 
them both. In this great stroke of statecraft for 
the young Republic, the deed which made the 
future greatness of America possible, "Jay," wrote 
Madison, " has taken the lead ; Adams has fol- 
lowed with cordiality ; France has been dragged 
into it." 

The result was of incalculable importance. It 
more than realized the dream of Spottswood of 
half a century before. It more than doubled the 
area of the young Repubhc. The original colonies 
east of the mountains, including their "prov- 



56 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

inces " of Maine and Vermont, comprised less 
than 400,000 square miles. The territory between 
the mountains and the Mississippi, secured and 
confirmed to them by Jay's intrepid violation of 
stupid orders, comprised about 440,000 square 
miles. It now consists of the states of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, most of Alabama and Mississippi, a 
corner of Georgia, and one-third of Minnesota. 
Moreover, the magnitude and wealth of the region 
were rivalled by its strategic importance. It gave 
to the United States the whole of Lake Michigan, 
and a full frontage on Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and 
Lake Superior. More than that, it gave to this 
country the eastern bank of the Mississippi River 
from its source down to and below the confluence 
of the Red River. Such was the splendid domain 
secured at the very foundation of the Republic, 
and through the very treaty which first established 
our independence. Such was the foundation laid 
in colonial and revolutionary times, upon which 
the later edifice of territorial expansion has been 
erected. Our title to that domain was fivefold. 
First, there were the royal grants to the colonies, 
which nominally extended clear across the conti- 
nent, but which were insisted upon by the colonies 
only so far as actual occupation was effected. 
Second, there was the settlement of Kentucky 
and Tennessee. Third, there was the forcible 
conquest of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Fourth, 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 57 

there was the success of the Revolutionary War. 
And fifth, there was the Treaty of Paris. 

The Treaty of Paris was promptly ratified by 
the Congress whose orders had been so flagrantly 
violated in the negotiation of it, and the Confedera- 
tion of states entered upon the possession of the 
western domain. Perhaps, we should say that the 
states, rather than the Confederation, did so. For 
there was as yet no nation, and there was no 
national domain. The region west of the moun- 
tains was largely claimed by individual states. 
At the time of the Treaty of Paris the division 
of territory was substantially as follows : New 
Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, 
Pennsylvania, and Maryland had their present 
boundaries. Massachusetts had her present area, 
and in addition what is now the state of Maine, 
all of what is now New York west of Utica and 
south of Cape Vincent, the southern parts of 
Michigan and Wisconsin, and the northern part 
of Illinois. Connecticut in addition to her present 
area had a broad strip extending from Pennsyl- 
vania to the Mississippi River across the northern 
parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. New York 
had claimed, in addition to the eastern part of her 
present state, all of Vermont, the northern parts 
of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the eastern third 
of Minnesota, but in 1781, anticipating subsequent 
events, had ceded those western regions to the 
Confederation, thus laying the foundation of a 



58 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

federal domain and setting an example of incalcu- 
lable importance. Virginia had her present area, 
and also West Virginia, Kentucky, and the south- 
ern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. She had, 
by the way, offered, in January, 1781, to give all 
her lands north of the Ohio River to the Confeder- 
acy, thus anticipating New York's cession, but the 
actual transfer was not made until 1784. North 
Carolina had her present area and Tennessee. 
South Carolina, in addition to her present state, 
had a narrow strip just south of Tennessee, run- 
ning across the northern ends of Georgia, Alabama, 
and Mississippi to the Mississippi River. Georgia 
had her present area, excepting the South Caro- 
lina strip, and also Alabama and Mississippi north 
of the Florida line. 

Beginning with New York on March i, 1781, 
and followed by Virginia on March i, 1784, state 
after state relinquished the western lands to the 
Confederation, and thus established a national do- 
main, owned and administered by all the states 
in common. The importance of this action upon 
the development of a national spirit, national 
institutions, and the nation itself, is not easily to 
be overestimated. The common ownership of 
enormous properties was a strong bond of union, 
and a potent force, making for still more complete 
unification. The result of Clark's adventures and 
of Jay's strenuous diplomacy was, therefore, not 
only the acquisition of territory but the develop- 
ment of nationality. 



SECURING THE OPEN DOOR 59 

It was even more than that. It in a measure 
shaped the fundamental policy of the nation that 
was to be. It was Virginia, under the lead of 
Jefferson, then her governor, that first offered to 
the Confederation the lands north of the Ohio. 
Later, when the cession to the general govern- 
ment had actually been effected, it was Virginia, 
also under Jefferson's lead, that moved for the 
establishment of an organized government over 
those lands. The Ordinance of 1787, for the 
government of the Northwest Territory, was one 
of the most important pieces of legislation made 
by the Congress of the Confederation. Daniel 
Webster doubted " whether one single law of any 
lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects 
of more distinct, marked, and lasting character." 
George F. Hoar has declared that it " belongs with 
the Declaration of Independence and the Consti- 
tution " as "one of the three title deeds of Ameri- 
can constitutional liberty." 

These lofty estimates are not overdrawn. It 
was that ordinance that established the principle 
of congressional government of territories belong- 
ing to the United States but not yet incorporated 
into the Union, and that provided for the creation 
of states out of such territories, and for their ad- 
mission into the Union. The ordinance also pro- 
vided that after the year 1800 human slavery 
should not exist north of the Ohio River, a pro- 
vision which formed the corner-stone of the free 



60 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

state power of the North, and which half a century 
later led to results of vast importance. We have 
said that Jefferson was the author of the Ordinance 
of 1787. It was not adopted just as he would 
have had it. He earnestly urged the application 
of the antislavery clause to the territory south of 
the Ohio, too. Had his counsel prevailed, the 
slavery question would have been settled and dis- 
posed of at the very beginning of our national life. , 
We may smile at Jefferson's fantastic proposals to 
call the new transmontane states by such names 
as Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Poloypotamia, Peli- 
sipia, and Illinoia. They were survivals of his 
green and salad days when he habitually referred 
to his adored Belinda as " Campana in Die" — a 
polyglot pun almost deserving of capital punish- 
ment. But we must rank among the great glories V 
of his career his strenuous support of Clark'a con- 
quest of the northwest, and his statesmanlike 
leadership in giving to that region a free repub- 
lican constitution and in opening to it the doors 
of the Federal Union. Of a truth, expansion was 
well provided for, even before we became a nation. 
The possibility of ten new states was secured to 
us, and the transformation of the Confederation 
into a federal Union, and of the colonies into a 
nation, was irrevocably assured. 



CHAPTER III 

THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 

The nation had "found itself." It was compe- 
tent to possess and to improve the domain which 
had been gained for it by the early expansionists, 
from Spottswood to Jay. It had got rid of its 
early passion for clinging to the sea. It was ready 
to go in and possess the land. Immediately upon 
the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris the tide of 
pioneers and settlers which had already set west- 
ward was enormously increased in volume. Through 
every gap in the mountain wall it flowed in mighty 
streams. It was not long before new states be- 
gan to be formed. Of those west of the moun- 
tains Kentucky was first of all, in 1792. That was 
only sixteen years after the first and futile attempt 
to secure for Kentucky organization and recogni- 
tion as a county of Virginia. Four years later, in 
1796, Tennessee also became a state. The iden- 
tity and position of these two deserve attention. 
They were not the best land in the transmontane 
region. Ohio and Illinois have since grown into 
greater states. Nor were they the easiest to pos- 
sess and to improve. But they had the supreme 

61 



62 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

value of strategic position. Whether the pioneer 
settlers realized that fact may be questioned. But 
there is an unconscious prescience that dominates 
fate and directs the destinies of nations. Of all 
the lands beyond the mountains, Kentucky was 
by far the most important at that time to the 
young and growing republic. It fronted on the 
Ohio River down to its mouth, and also upon 
the Mississippi River. In the erection of Kentucky 
into a state the Union first gained unbroken ex- 
tension from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The 
United States became a Mississippi River power. 
In the admission of Tennessee, four years later, 
the frontage on the Mississippi was largely in- 
creased, and was extended in the direction of the 
mouth of that river. 

The commercial and industrial importance of 
this river frontage is obvious. In those days the 
railroad was not yet dreamed of, and even good 
wagon roads were few, especially across the moun- 
tain ranges. Communication between the east 
and west was therefore difficult. From the Ohio 
Valley to the Atlantic coast by way of the moun- 
tains was indeed a hard road to travel. The easiest 
route was down the great rivers and around by 
sea. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers formed the 
natural avenue of ingress and egress. Not New 
York but New Orleans was the seaport of the 
new states and of the territories which were rapidly 
CTOwing: into other states. It was a fine thing to 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 63 

own the whole of the Ohio River. It was a fine 
thing to own the east bank of the Mississippi for 
two thousand miles and to have the right to navi- 
gate its waters for that distance. But that was 
not enough. In order to be served satisfactorily 
by that river, the western settlers must be per- 
mitted to navigate it freely to its very mouth, 
where they could connect with the high seas, and 
they must also have at or near its mouth a free 
port, at which the cargoes of their river craft could 
be unloaded, stored, and transferred to ocean- 
going vessels, and at which also the same pro- 
cesses could be reversed, between ocean-going 
ships and river craft. 

The lower three hundred miles of the Missis- 
sippi, however, including both banks and the mouth, 
were in the hands of Spain, and the needed navi- 
gation of them and use of the port of New Orleans 
could be had only through permission of that power. 
And Spain was our enemy. She still cherished 
resentment against the whole Anglo-Saxon race 
for its intrusion into the Western hemisphere 
which she had claimed for her own. She realized 
that it was chiefly because of that intrusion that 
she had herself been so largely expelled and that 
she was in danger of entire expulsion. She 
cherished against the United States the accumu- 
lation of her ancient fury against Oxcnham and 
Drake. She had, as we have seen, bitterly re- 
sented the American conquest of Illinois, perceiv- 



64 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ing in it a menace to her own territories in 
Louisiana and beyond the Mississippi. She had 
exerted all her influence upon France to keep the 
United States shut away from the Mississippi in 
the treaty of 1783. Having been beaten in those 
efforts by the adventure and daring of Clark and 
by the diplomacy of Jay, she spitefully determined 
to make our possession of those territories and 
our use of the Mississippi as uncomfortable as 
possible. 

Another cause of friction with Spain and of dis- 
content in the United States was found in the 
Yazoo Territory. In the Treaty of Paris it was 
stipulated that the southern boundary of the 
United States, between it and the Floridas, which 
latter England was about to return to Spain in 
exchange for the Bahamas, should begin on the 
Mississippi at the mouth of the Red River and 
run eastward along the thirty-first parallel as far 
as the Chattahoochee River. But a secret article 
in that treaty, known at the time to only England 
and the United States, provided that if England 
should retain possession of West Florida, the line 
should be drawn east from the mouth of the Yazoo 
River, in about latitude 32° 30', or nearly a hun- 
dred miles farther north. Thus England and the 
United States indicated that each was quite will- 
ing that the other should have that valuable strip, 
which now forms much of the southern half of 
Mississippi and Alabama, but neither was willing 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 65 

that Spain should have it. In time the secret 
clause became known to Spain, and great, and not 
unnatural, was her wrath thereat. There was 
actually talk of war, for which, however, Spain was 
hopelessly ill prepared. But the American govern- 
ment was flatly informed that Spain intended to 
hold that territory, claiming everything up to the 
Yazoo River. A strong Spanish garrison was 
maintained at Natchez. Americans were warned 
not to navigate the Mississippi below the Yazoo, 
and it was intimated that no further concessions 
for commercial privileges on the lower Mississippi 
would be granted until the United States withdrew 
from the territory below the Yazoo and formally 
relinquished it to Spain. For some years after the 
Treaty of Paris, Spain's policy concerning our use 
of the lower Mississippi was arbitrary and capri- 
cious in the extreme. Thus in 1783 she opened 
that river to us. In 1784, on learning of our secret 
compact with England, she rigorously closed it. 
In 1785 she opened it again, and again closed it 
against us in the same year. It was impossible to 
tell in advance whether a vessel starting down the 
river would be able to get to the sea or not. Pres- 
ently she began a still more annoying policy. In 
1787 the vessel of a Vincennes merchant was 
seized by the Spanish and confiscated, for tres- 
passing in Spanish waters, and during the next 
year or two many such acts of aggression were 
committed. 



66 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

It was in human nature to retaliate, and hu- 
man nature was pretty strong and strenuous among 
the settlers of the Ohio Valley. A leading spirit 
in those regions was George Rogers Clark, who 
was as bold and adventurous as in his Kaskaskia 
and Vincennes campaign, and who was now de- 
veloping those lawless and unscrupulous traits of 
character which ultimately proved his ruin. When 
he heard that the Spanish had seized an American 
vessel he promptly retaliated by seizing a Spanish 
vessel. The pioneers of Kentucky and Illinois 
rallied to his leadership, and he soon became the 
head of a violent and dangerous party. He was 
described graphically as being engaged in "play- 
ing hell," and he and his doings were formally 
repudiated by Virginia, of which the Kentucky 
territory was still a part. Rebuke and warning 
had, however, no effect upon Clark, unless to in- 
cite him to further violence, and even to treason. 
Since Virginia and the Confederation would not 
support him in his violent acts, he began to medi- 
tate secession from them. He and his followers 
argued that the free navigation of the Mississippi 
was necessary to them, and that if Virginia or the 
United States would not secure it for them, they 
would be justified in seceding and setting up for 
themselves an independent government, which 
would secure it, or even in annexing themselves 
to the Spanish colonies and thus getting the cov- 
eted privilege as a matter of right. Their policy 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 6/ 

was one of "expecting all things in an hour," and 
of smashing everything within reach if they did 
not get it. In this deplorable and dangerous cam- 
paign a leading part was also taken by James 
Wilkinson, who afterward, it is humiliating to 
remember, was commander of the Army of the 
United States. He was a Kentuckian, of Mary- 
land origin, who had apparently been produced by 
the latter state as a freakish counterfoil against 
the generally fine quality of her patriotism and 
statesmanship ; and he seemed to possess the vices 
of Arnold and Burr without a tithe of the valor 
of the one or of the superficial skill of the other. 

Had Clark and Wilkinson and others of like 
kidney possessed greater ability and courage, and 
had the astute and masterful Galvez still been Span- 
ish governorat New Orleans, these plans might have 
succeeded, or at any rate the young Republic might 
at the beginning of its career have been confronted 
with a serious rebellion in the very territory it 
had secured at so great pains. But among the 
would-be secessionists there was not one man of 
first-class ability, while Gardoqui, Miro, and Na- 
varro all put together would not have measured 
up to the knees of Galvez. Nevertheless the dis- 
affected Kentuckians and implacable Spaniards 
persisted in their intrigues. Spain, through her 
agent, the Belgian Baron Carondelet, and others, 
incited the Indians to hostilities against the United 
States, and supplied them with arms. She en- 



68 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

couraged the secession movement in Kentucky, 
with intimations that if the people of that territory 
would separate themselves from the United States, 
the free use of the Mississippi would be granted to 
them forever. As an alternative to that, it was 
proposed that the Kentuckians should migrate to 
the western shore of the Mississippi and establish 
themselves there in colonies under the Spanish 
flag, enjoying, of course, full and free use of the 
river and its ports. This latter scheme was actu- 
ally accepted by a few. Colonel George Morgan, 
a Mississippi trader, of New Jersey origin, founded 
a colony on Spanish soil, of which the city of 
New Madrid remains to this day as a memorial. 
George Rogers Clark offered to do the same, in 
1788, but did not fulfil the scheme. Meantime 
Brown, the Kentucky delegate to Congress, and 
others, continued the propaganda of simple 
secession. 

Thus matters stood when, in 1 793-1 794, the 
French minister. Genet, undertook his infamous 
intrigues to involve the United States in a war 
with England in order to help the selfish schemes 
of France, and actually succeeded in what we may 
describe as hypnotizing Jefferson and his party into 
a blind worship of France and especially of Jacobin- 
ism. George Rogers Clark, growing more and more 
embittered against the United States government, 
readily fell in with the Genet conspiracy. Clark had 
a grievance against the United States government 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 69 

and against Virginia, which was doubtless in part 
well founded. His claims for payment for his 
great labors, and even for reimbursement for his 
own expenditures in the public service, had not been 
paid to his satisfaction. But we cannot find in that 
fact justification for his conduct, any more than 
we can find in the contemptible conduct of the 
Continental Congress and the worse than contemp- 
tible conduct of Gates justification for the treason 
of Arnold. Nevertheless Clark went on with his dis- 
loyal plottings. When Genet suggested a western 
raid against Louisiana, knowing it would offend 
England and hoping it might embroil the United 
States in a war with that country, Clark promptly 
offered to lead it, if the means of equipping it were 
supplied. Further than that, he volunteered to 
expatriate himself, renounce his American citizen- 
ship, and enter the service of France. Genet took 
him at his word, and gave him a commission as 
major-general in the French army. Thereupon 
Clark, whom we must charitably suppose to have 
become partially insane, issued a flamboyant proc- 
lamation, in his capacity as " major-general in 
the French army and commander-in-chief of the 
French Revolutionary Legions on the Mississippi," 
calling for volunteers in a campaign against New 
Orleans and the Spanish colonies generally, and 
promising to his followers practically unlimited 
loot. He actually got together a considerable 
number of men, and miofht have caused some mis- 



70 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

chief had it not been for the judicious intervention 
of General Wayne — who was called " Mad An- 
thony " apparently because of his unfailing sanity. 
Genet was abruptly recalled in merited disgrace 
in 1794, and Clark thereupon abandoned his wild 
scheme. 

While Spain doubtless felt hostility toward the 
United States on other grounds, and did her ut- 
most to annoy and injure this country, she seems 
to have had technical right on her side in the mat- 
ter of the Yazoo lands. The secret article in the 
Treaty of Paris was indefensible on moral grounds. 
The legal boundaries of West Florida must be the 
same, whether England or Spain possessed that 
territory. But Americans were just then indulg- 
ing in a craze of land-hunger and a debauch of 
speculation. Land companies were formed in 
various states for the exploitation of the disputed 
territory, and large sums of money were invested 
in them. There was a welter of corrupt com- 
petition and freebooting. Naturally those who 
were engaged in such work opposed surrendering 
the lands to Spain. There was indeed little 
thought of such surrender on any hand. But the 
alternative, as presented by Spain, was the closing 
of the Mississippi against our commerce. Jay, 
while Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had once pro- 
posed to settle the matter without losing the lands 
by making with Spain a treaty relinquishing for 
twenty-five years the right to navigate the lower 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN yi 

Mississippi. This proposal raised a furious storm. 
There was talk of violence toward all who favored 
it, and talk of secession if such a treaty was made. 
That, indeed, was the provocation of much of the 
secession plotting of Clark, Wilkinson, and their 
fellows. 

Happily the presidential chair was at that time 
filled by the man who, many years before, had 
acted with such valor and judgment at Great 
Meadows, in the first expansionist campaign. 
Washington sent in 1795, as minister to Spain, 
the able and resolute Thomas Pinckney, of South 
Carolina, for the especial purpose of settling the 
Mississippi dispute. Pinckney's antagonist in 
negotiations was the notorious Godoy, the "Prince 
of the Peace." When Godoy tried the customary 
tricks of evasion and delay, Pinckney brought him 
sharply to terms by demanding his passports. 
Godoy had no stomach for an open quarrel with 
the United States at that time, so he pretty 
promptly, though grudgingly, accepted the alter- 
native. He concluded with Pinckney a treaty 
recognizing the title of the United States to the 
Yazoo lands down to the thirty-first parallel, as 
provided in the Treaty of Paris, and granting to 
this country for a term of three years the right of 
free deposit and transshipment at New Orleans. 
After the three years that right was either to be 
continued at New Orleans or transferred to some 
other convenient point on the lower Mississippi. 



72 , A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Navigation of the Mississippi River was to be en- 
tirely free to both nations, throughout its entire 
course. This treaty, made by Pinckney and Godoy 
on October 20, 1795, was a marked triumph for 
American diplomacy. It settled, for the time, a 
most embarrassing and menacing question, to the 
advantage of the United States. It was in an 
obvious respect to Spain's advantage also, and had 
that power been able and willing to maintain in- 
definitely the settlement thus made, it is possible 
that her expulsion from the North American con- 
tinent would have been considerably longer post- 
poned. 

But Spain's traditionary enmity toward the Eng- 
lish-speaking race seemed stronger than treaty ob- 
ligations. The Pinckney-Godoy treaty was ratified 
by the Madrid government in 1796, but was not 
fulfilled. Spain practically refused to fulfil it, and 
Carondelet and Wilkinson continued their treason- 
able conspiracies for secession. Kentucky, how- 
ever, had now recovered from the secession fever, 
and began to demand the execution of the treaty. 
In this demand she was fully supported by the 
Federal government, to good effect. Andrew 
Ellicott was sent down to survey and mark the 
boundary line along the thirty-first parallel, from 
the Mississippi to the Appalachicola, and, to show 
that the United States was in earnest, a detach- 
ment of troops was sent to give him whatever aid 
and support he might need. At this demonstra- 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 73 

tion Spain yielded, and in 1798 finally withdrew 
her garrison from Natchez and relinquished the 
whole Yazoo territory to this country. For a 
time thereafter peace and a reasonable degree of 
satisfaction — at least on the American side — pre- 
vailed. But two potent influences soon began to 
make for a disturbance of the settlement and a 
readjustment of relations. 

One of these influences was Spain's recognition 
of the expansionist policy of the United States. 
She realized that the American people possessed 
a genius for conquest far surpassing" that of her 
own old-time conquistadores. In spite of all op- 
position, they had pushed their way westward to 
the Mississippi, and southward to the Red River. 
In truthful vision she saw them soon pushing far- 
ther on, westward to the Rocky Mountains, and 
southward to the Gulf. Her possessions in Loui- 
siana, Texas, and Mexico were menaced by them. 
Her own power was rapidly waning. She was not 
able to make an effective stand against the crescent 
power of the ambitious, unsentimental, and seem- 
ingly ruthless Americans. What could be done 
with a people who "had no repose," and who under- 
stood not the fine art of delay, and whose envoy, 
in reply to a proposal that an important discussion 
be postponed until to-morrow, said, " To-day, or I 
will take my passport " } There was only one thing 
for Spain to do. That was, to sell Louisiana and 
the whole western shore of the Mississippi to some 



74 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Stronger power, that would be able to hold it for- 
ever as a barrier between her Mexican and Cali- 
fornian possessions and these terrible Americans. 
She would then retire beyond the Sabine or the 
Rio Grande, and the Rocky Mountains, and dream 
her dreams of "manana" with none to disturb or 
menace her. 

The other influence was the possibility of using 
her American possessions as a pawn in the Euro- 
pean game. To the Spanish Bourbon mind of 
those days a province in Europe was better than 
an empire in America. Now France, under the 
imperious and aggressive lead of Bonaparte, had 
seized a petty domain in Italy, which Spain coveted 
and greatly desired to regain. It therefore seemed 
a fine opportunity to negotiate with France, 
exchanging the American empire for the Italian 
province. On her part, France — or perhaps we 
should say, on his part, Bonaparte — was not re- 
luctant to make the exchange. France desired to 
regain at least a part of the American empire she 
had lost a generation before. Bonaparte knew that 
to regain it would greatly add to his prestige and 
popularity. Moreover, there was a chronic state 
of war between France and England, and French 
possession of the mouth of the Mississippi River 
and the western part of the Mississippi Valley 
would greatly annoy England, and afford an ad- 
mirable vantage-ground from which to conduct a 
campaign against the English empire in Canada. 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 75 

With a French fleet in the Mississippi, and a 
French army moving up that river for the inva- 
sion of Canada, a French insurrection in Quebec 
might be incited, and all Canada might be re- 
gained for France. Such were the dreams which 
Bonaparte began to cherish, and under the influ- 
ence of which he lent a ready ear to suggestions 
of an exchange with Spain. 

After some haggling and delay the exchange 
was made. It was made secretly, by the secret 
Treaty of San Ildefonso, on October i, 1800. 
The secrecy of it was a sweet morsel, which both 
Spain and France rolled under their tongues with 
vast delight. It was, they reckoned, fine revenge 
upon England and the United States for making 
the Treaty of Paris over the head of France, and 
for making that secret provision about the Yazoo 
lands. There was in the treaty one feature which 
afterward led to much trouble. That was, that 
instead of setting forth the boundaries of the 
Louisiana territory it merely referred to it as the 
territory possessed by Spain and formerly pos- 
sessed by France. There was no mention of 
the dividing line between it and the remaining 
Spanish possessions at the southeast. There was 
also attached to it one notable condition, unmis- 
takably revealing Spain's purpose in making the 
trade. That was the stipulation that France 
should keep the Louisiana territory as her own 
forever, and never retransfer it to any other 



'j^ A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

power. Spain wanted to make sure of keeping 
a French buffer between herself in Mexico and 
the Americans in Kentucky and Mississippi. 
That stipulation Bonaparte, however, with char- 
acteristic treachery, threw to the winds the mo- 
ment it suited his purpose so to do. 

The Treaty of San Ildefonso was secretly nego- 
tiated, and was kept secret for some time, the 
Spanish meanwhile retaining actual possession of 
New Orleans and Louisiana and continuing to 
administer the affairs of that region as though 
no such bargain had been made. This arrange- 
ment was to continue until Bonaparte was ready 
to take possession in force. It actually lasted 
until the end of the brief French ownership. At 
the time there was a temporary peace between 
France and England, and Bonaparte took advan- 
tage of it to prepare a powerful expedition to come 
over to New Orleans. An army of twenty-five thou- 
sand men was organized for the purpose, and a fleet 
was prepared to transport it hither. But, for rea- 
sons which we shall presently see, that fleet and 
army were never sent, and the Spanish were left 
in possession of Louisiana even after the secret 
treaty was made public and the French ownership 
of the territory was made known. This circum- 
stance greatly renewed and increased American 
irritation. French ownership of Louisiana was 
greatly resented by the United States. But if 
it had been accompanied with actual French 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN -jy 

administration, this country might have been able 
to negotiate temporarily satisfactory commercial 
arrangements, as it had done with Spain. But 
the Spanish terminated their own treaty, and 
declined to make a new one, on the ground that 
they no longer owned the country. 

On October i6, 1802, Morales, the Spanish 
intendant at New Orleans, arbitrarily revoked 
the American right of deposit at that port. This 
was contrary to the will of the Spanish govern- 
ment, and without the knowledge of the king of 
Spain, who afterward disapproved the act. It was 
also done without the knowledge of France. Ap- 
parently Morales, knowing the Spanish would 
soon have to get out of Louisiana altogether, 
spitefully determined to do the United States 
all the injury he could before such evacuation 
took place. Such a spirit and such conduct were 
quite characteristic of Spanish statesmen at that 
time. The United States fiercely resented it, and 
came to the heroic conclusion that the only way 
to settle the Mississippi question was to take or 
acquire possession itself of the whole course of 
that river. It was resolutely determined that 
Spain should be ousted from New Orleans, and 
that France should not be permitted to settle there 
in her stead. For Spain to remain there, or for 
France to settle there, would mean war, sooner 
or later, and if there was ever to be war over the 
Mississippi, it would best come at once. The 



78 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

United States was ready for it. The temporary 
dalliance with secession in Kentucky was past, 
and the whole Republic was firmly united upon 
the policy of protecting and maintaining its rights 
upon its western border. 

We have said that the American nation had 
found itself. That was the most significant fea- 
ture of the times. The colonists had originally 
come to America largely, perhaps chiefly, to 
escape from the misgovernment of Europe and 
to get away from the interminable intrigues and 
quarrels of the European states. Their ambition 
was to found for themselves a new nation which 
should forever be free from those detested condi- 
tions and influences. They wanted to be divorced 
wholly from the "European system." During the 
colonial period they had suffered much from being 
followed hither by the very things they had striven 
to escape. They were still treated as pawns in 
the European game. They were still subjected 
to European misgovernment. It was largely be- 
cause of those things that they revolted. In the 
Revolution they were successful, they fondly be- 
lieved, in ridding themselves forever of the Euro- 
pean incubus, though, as we have seen, in the very 
act of making peace at the end of it they were once 
more brought into unpleasant contact with Euro- 
pean intrigues, over which they triumphed with 
intrigues of their own. Ever since, they had felt 
that continued contact with at least one European 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 79 

power, at the west and south, was a perennial 
source of irritation and danger. European in- 
trigues and the baleful purport of the European 
system were as active and as menacing on the 
Mississippi during the last dozen years of the 
eighteenth century as they had been at Paris in 
1783. A quarter of a century after the Declara- 
tion of Independence America was still made to 
feel, to its hurt, the malign influences of European 
animosities. 

It was natural, then, that there should begin to 
arise with irresistible force a spirit of what we 
may call continental nationality. The first effort 
at getting away from the European system had 
been made through emigration. It had failed. 
The second had been made through revolution 
and independence. It, too, had failed to achieve 
its full purpose. The third was to be made by 
the expulsion from this continent of all remaining 
European powers and influences that could prove 
a source of disturbance or injury. France and 
Spain were especially regarded as offensive and 
menacing, and therefore as to be expelled. They 
had both before and after the Revolution been 
America's worst enemies. They still held the 
major territories in area, in strategic importance, 
and in future potentiality. England in Canada 
was looked upon with much more complacence, 
partly because of the close kinship and actual 
friendship between England and America, and 



80 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

partly because it was not supposed that Canada 
could, in its geographical situation, ever be devel- 
oped into a rival of or a serious menace to the 
United States. But the alien power which held 
the western half of the Mississippi Valley and the 
mouth of that river, that was the enemy that 
must be got rid of ; peaceably if we could, forcibly 
if we must. The United States, in order to be 
secure, and in order to fulfil the purposes for 
which the colonies were founded and indepen- 
dence was achieved, must be the dominant and 
paramount power on the North American conti- 
nent. 

In this momentous and supreme development of 
national spirit, and in the movement which more 
than anything else since the Revolution directed 
the progress and determined the destinies of 
America, the foremost leader was Alexander Ham- 
ilton. The line of colonial and revolutionary 4- 
expansionists began with Spottswood and culmi- 
nated with Jay. The line of expansionists under ^ 
the Constitution began with Hamilton, Indeed 
he began the propaganda of national expansion 
before the Constitution was framed and the nation 
established. His last act as a member of the Con- 
gress of the old Confederation was to introduce 
and to advocate, with his unrivalled powers of 
argument, a resolution declaring that the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi River, to the sea, was a 
clear and essential right of the American states, 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 8 1 

and was to be supported and insisted upon as such. 
Later, when he was a member of Washington's 
Cabinet, he declared at a Cabinet meeting that the 
free use of the Mississippi was " essential to the 
unity of the Empire." (An "imperialist" as well 
as an expansionist, that same Hamilton !) Close 
by the side of Hamilton in these contentions stood 
that statesman who was second only to him in 
clarity and penetration of intellectual powers, 
James Madison. Madison indeed may have pre- 
ceded Hamilton in point of time in demanding 
the free navigation of the Mississippi. He in- 
sisted upon this away back in the Revolution, as a 
necessary part of the then proposed alliance with 
Spain, and persisted in it even when his own state 
of Virginia relinquished the claim. He vigorously 
opposed the policy of Jay's proposed treaty with 
Spain, in 1786, under which that claim was to be 
relinquished by the United States, and he made 
urgent personal appeals to Washington and to 
Lafayette against the policy. Another vigorous 
supporter of the right of free navigation was Jeffer- 
son. "The act which abandons it," he said, con- 
cerning the Mississippi in opposing Jay's policy, 
"is an act of separation between the eastern and 
the western country." So Jefferson wrote to 
Madison, on January 30, 1787, having in view the 
Kentuckian menace of secession, and looking for 
its fulfilment if the general government did not 
maintain the demand for free use of the great river. 



82 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

But Hamilton outranked even these strenuous 
champions of American rights in the boldness and 
correctness of estimate of the means by which the 
end was to be attained. Madison, Jefferson, and 
the others merely insisted that Spain should grant 
us in perpetuity the free use of the Mississippi, 
on grounds of expediency, of comity, and of inter- 
national law. Hamilton saw clearly that such an 
arrangement would not and could not permanently 
endure, nor long prove satisfactory. The control 
of the river must in the end be vested in the power 
that owned its banks. Therefore if the United 
States was to enjoy entirely satisfactory use of the 
river, it must own the land through which the 
river flowed, all the way down to the sea. Long 
before the matter was brought to a crisis by the 
Treaty of San Ildefonso and the transfer of Loui- 
siana to France, he urged that the United States 
should and indeed must, for its own welfare, 
acquire full sovereignty and possession of Loui- 
siana, on both sides of the river, and also of the 
Floridas, so as to own the Mississippi from source 
to mouth, and also the whole shore of the Gulf and 
those narrow Florida Straits through which com- 
merce between the Mississippi and the Atlantic 
ports must pass. He made this policy of his plain 
to Pickering in 1798, and in 1799 he wrote again : 
" I have long been in the habit of considering the 
acquisition of those countries as essential to the 
permanency of the Union." In The Federalist, 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 83 

too, he wrote : " Our situation invites and prompts 
us to aim at an ascendant in American affairs." 
In few respects was the unrivalled genius of that 
greatest of American constructive statesmen so 
clearly and triumphantly revealed as in this matter. 
Nor has there often been a more striking touch of 
fate's proverbial irony than that the fulfilment of 
the major part of his great design should have been 
ultimately intrusted to his chief political oppo- 
nent, and his opponent on this very policy, whom 
Hamilton himself had generously made President. 
"Our situation," wrote Hamilton in The Fed- 
eralist, " invites and prompts us to aim at an 
ascendant in American affairs." Toward that 
end he systematically and energetically worked. 
He became interested in the Spanish liberator of 
South America, Miranda, and engaged in corre- 
spondence with him, encouraging his schemes for 
throwing off the Spanish yoke. His ideal was the 
possession of the whole North American continent, 
possibly with the exception of Canada, by the 
United States, and of the South American continent 
by a group of independent republics, bound to the 
United States by the ties of gratitude and com- 
munity of interest. The two continents should 
form a political system of their own, entirely inde- 
pendent of Europe. Thus masterfully and presci- 
ently did he forecast the Monroe Doctrine, and 
sound long in advance the keynote of the memo- 
rable utterances of Washing-ton in his Farewell 



84 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Address and of Jefferson in his much-quoted in- 
augural. Doubtless it was because of these well- 
known views and purposes of Hamilton that Spain 
made haste to conclude with France the Treaty of 
San Ildefonso, preferring to sell or trade Loui- 
siana to France rather than have it taken from her 
by America under the strenuous leadership of 
Hamilton. We may also credit to the same 
circumstance Talleyrand's eagerness to restore 
friendly relations with the United States, and his 
intimation that the sending of an American min- 
ister to France would be welcomed. 

Jefferson, as we have seen, was an early cham- 
pion of American rights on the Mississippi, though 
his point of view was opposed to that of Hamilton. 
He insisted, as early as 1780, that the United 
States must have immediate and full enjoyment 
of the navigation of the Mississippi. He denied 
that Spain's ownership of both banks of the river 
gave her the right to close it to our commerce. 
Such were his representations, as Secretary of 
State, in his negotiations with Spain for treaty 
rights on the lower Mississippi, and he added that 
if Spain did not grant our just demands, it would 
be impossible to " answer for the forbearance of 
our western citizens." He hoped for a pacific set- 
tlement of the controversy, but was prepared for 
recourse to arms if that became necessary. 

The ground taken by Hamilton was doubtless 
the more logical of the two. Indeed, it is difficult 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 85 

to see how Jefferson's was tenable. Hamilton 
seems to have conceded that the lower Mississippi 
was a part of Spain's territorial waters, which Spain 
had a technical right, under international law, to 
regulate and control as she pleased, and navigation 
of which was to be enjoyed by us as a grant from 
Spain. But the United States had a right to de- 
mand such a grant on the ground that it was essen- 
tial to our welfare, and Spain must yield it on that 
ground. Moreover, in order to secure such use of 
the river absolutely and forever, the United States 
must itself become the owner of Louisiana, and 
thus make the Mississippi a part of its own terri- 
torial waters, like the Ohio and the Hudson. 

Jefferson, on the contrary, contended that we 
had a natural right to navigate the Mississippi, 
without regard to Spain's wishes or her ownership 
of the land through which the river flowed. That 
meant, of course, either that the Mississippi River 
as far up as Vicksburg was a part of the high seas, 
which is absurd, or that one country has a right to 
navigate at will the territorial waters of another, 
which is contrary to law. The untenability of Jef- 
ferson's position may be perceived through analogy. 
We have now an indisputable right to navigate our 
half of Lake Ontario, and the upper part of the St. 
Lawrence. But nobody dreams of claiming our 
right to navigate the Welland Canal, or the St. 
Lawrence below Cornwall, without Canada's con- 
sent, or to use Montreal and Quebec as free ports 



86 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

for storage and transshipment of our goods. If 
the Hudson River were connected by a navigable 
channel with Lake Champlain, it is inconceivable 
that this country would ever concede that Canada 
had a natural right to navigate it down to Sandy 
Hook and to use New York City as a free port. 

It took Jefferson, as Secretary of State, from 
1790 to 1795 to secure from Spain the right to 
navigate the lower Mississippi and to use New 
Orleans as a port of deposit, and then, as we have 
seen, the right was granted for only three years. 
In those negotiations, and in those which followed 
for a renewal of the treaty for another term, he 
relied largely upon the aid and good offices of 
France, to which country he was partial and in 
whose friendship for the United States he placed 
almost implicit confidence. That confidence was, 
however, quite misplaced. While professing friend- 
ship for him, France was secretly intriguing against 
him, and in the fall of 1800 she concluded with 
Spain the Treaty of San Ildefonso. That treaty 
was kept secret until the spring of 1802, when Jef- 
ferson was President instead of merely Secretary 
of State. His wrath at learning how he had thus 
been tricked by his loved and trusted France knew 
no bounds. He became as bitter against France 
as he had formerly been partial to her, and became 
as ready to cultivate English friendship as he had 
been suspicious of and averse to it. He wrote on 
April 18, 1802, to Livingston, the American min- 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN Zy 

ister to France, as follows : "The cession of Loui- 
siana by Spain to France works most sorely on the 
United States. It completely reverses all the 
political relations of the United States. There is 
on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which 
is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New 
Orleans. It is impossible that France and the 
United States can continue long friends, when 
they meet in so irritable a position. The day that 
France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the 
sentence which is to restrain her forever within 
her low-water mark. It seals the union of two 
nations who, in conjunction, can maintain exclu- 
sive possession of the ocean. From that moment 
we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and -s^ 
nation." Thus early was not only suggested but 
demanded a union of the two great Anglo-Saxon 
powers for world-wide domination. y 

Jefferson's wrath was fully matched by that of 
the American people, especially in the new states 
of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in Ohio, which 
was just entering upon statehood. First arose 
incredulity, then indignation, and then a stern 
resolution. When the news was fully confirmed 
and its purport was manifested in the abrogation 
of all American rights on the lower Mississippi, the 
crisis came. The people of the West clamored for 
war, and those of the rest of the nation echoed the 
demand. France's oppression of our commerce on 
the high seas from 1794 to 1800 was fresh in mem- 



88 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ory, and was bitterly resented. It was recalled, 
too, not merely as something to be resented and 
avenged, but also as an indication of what Ameri- 
cans might expect from France on the Mississippi, 
and as an index of the mind and intent of France 
toward America generally. France was recognized 
as the one great enemy with which the United 
States had to reckon, and it was felt to be for the 
best that the issue should be at once fought out 
and decided. 

In this grave crisis Jefferson proved himself well 
worthy of his place as Chief Executive of the 
nation, even to the extent of reversing his most 
cherished policies and throwing his former predi- 
lections to the winds. Consistency, wrote Emer- 
son in later years, is something with which a great 
mind has nothing to do. Judged by that rule, Jef- 
ferson's greatness of mind was abundantly demon- 
strated. He had regarded France as our best 
friend ; he now declared her to be our worst 
enemy. He had opposed the construction of an 
American navy ; he now moved for making the 
United States a great naval power, great enough 
to defeat France at sea and to prevent her from 
sending troops to Louisiana. He had antagonized 
England ; he now courted her favor and proposed 
an alliance with her. He had striven for peace at 
any price ; he now favored seeking an opportunity 
for war. He had exhorted his countrymen to shun 
entangling alliances with European powers and to 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 89 

ignore all happenings in Europe ; he now urged 
them to take advantage of European complications 
and to ally themselves with a European power. 
He specifically urged that a close alliance be made 
with England, that all our energies be directed 
toward the construction of a navy that should hold 
the seas against France and cut her off from 
Louisiana, that as soon as France became involved 
in another war in Europe we should invade Loui- 
siana and forcibly expel the French authorities, 
and that thereafter we should hold both North and 
South America against the world " for the common 
purposes of the united British and American 
nations." Truly he had adopted Hamilton's con- 
tinental and Anglophile policy, with a vengeance ! 
He was actually out-Hamiltoning Hamilton. But 
he was right. The nation supported him enthusi- 
astically. It had "found itself." Congress sanc- 
tioned every measure he proposed, and those 
measures were radical and strenuous to a degree. 
Amazingly as he had thus reversed himself on 
almost every feature of national and international 
policy, however, let no one charge Jefferson with 
inconsistency. Much as he changed in details, to 
the one fundamental and paramount principle he 
was absolutely consistent. That principle was the 
welfare of his country. If peace would best serve 
that welfare, he favored peace ; if war, war. If a 
French alliance against England was best, he 
advocated it ; if an English alliance against France, 



90 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

he was equally hot for it. In any case he was for 
America before all the world. 

Events moved rapidly in 1803. In January 
Jefferson sent Monroe as a special envoy to 
P'rance. At the same time, mindful of some 
suggestions which James Ledyard of Connecticut 
had given him in Paris years before, he sent Lewis 
and Clark up the Mississippi and Missouri and 
across the Rocky Mountains to Oregon, to win the 
far northwestern wilderness for the United States, 
and to circumscribe the French territory at the 
north. A little later Congress in secret session 
voted him an appropriation of $2,000,000, to be 
used by him at his discretion for the settlement of 
the dispute over the Mississippi River — a notable 
prototype of a much later grant of a much larger 
sum to McKinley for preparation for a settlement 
with Spain. The act ran : " Resolved, that a sum 
of two million dollars be appropriated to defray 
any expenses which may be incurred in relation to 
the intercourse between the United States and 
foreign nations, to be applied under the direction 
of the President of the United States." In this 
resolution there was no mention of its special 
purport. But the committee in reporting it favor- 
ably said at the outset : "The object of this reso- 
lution is to enable the Executive to commence 
with more effect a negotiation with the French 
and Spanish governments relative to the purchase 
from them of the Island of New Orleans and the 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 9 1 

provinces of East and West Florida." Tlie same 
report added, after dwelling upon the importance 
of the issues : " If we look forward to the free use 
of the Mississippi and the other rivers of the West, 
New Orleans and the Floridas must become a 
part of the United States, either by purchase or by 
conquest. The great question, then, which pre- 
sents itself is, Shall we at this time lay the foun- 
dation for future peace by offering a fair and 
equivalent consideration, or shall we hereafter 
incur the hazards and the horrors of war?" In 
March the enlistment of eighty thousand volunteers 
was authorized, and the country was upon the verge 
of war. 

Yet even after going thus far, Jefferson seemed 
to lack the full courage of the occasion, at least 
for a moment. He did not venture to strike 
boldly for the whole Louisiana territory. He 
shrank back from the splendid scheme of conti- 
nental conquest to which he had at first committed 
himself, and reverted to the petty scheme of 
securing commercial rights on the lower Missis- 
sippi. His instructions to Livingston and Monroe 
were to negotiate for the purchase of the eastern 
bank of the Mississippi to its mouth, and the 
comparatively small bit of coast-land extending 
eastward therefrom, known as West Florida. 
That was all. He would have thus gained at most 
only that part of the state of Louisiana lying east 
of the Mississippi River and the southern end of 



92 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Mississippi, and of Alabama, as far as Mobile. 
Failing to effect such a purchase, Livingston and 
Monroe were instructed to quit Paris and proceed 
to London, there to negotiate an offensive and 
defensive alliance with England against France. 
Thus the author of the shibboleth, "entangling 
alliances with none," was the first American 
President to move for such an alliance ! Jefferson 
had regarded with disfavor Hamilton's proposal 
to take possession of the whole North American 
continent, on the ground that such an act would 
involve us in war. Yet now he was preparing to 
go to war for the right to navigate a single river of 
that continent and the ownership of a few hundred 
square miles of supposedly barren land. 

In the ensuing negotiations Jefferson's earlier 
words came back to plague him. Livingston had 
already, under his directions, announced to the 
French government that America sought merely 
to establish her right to navigate the Mississippi, 
and cared nothing about the actual ownership of 
the territory. This statement was recalled to the 
embarrassment of both Livingston and Monroe, 
when the latter reached Paris with proposals for 
the purchase of the land east of the river. It be- 
came necessary to explain that we had changed 
our mind on the subject of ownership ; at which 
the shrewd suggestion arose that if we deemed 
ownership of the land necessary for securing the 
right of navigation, our former demands for the 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 93 

right without ownership were ill founded. Monroe 
then pleaded that we were willing to buy the land 
just for the sake of peace and friendship. We did 
not want it. We did not consider possession of it 
to be necessary to establish our right to navigate 
the river. Moreover, we were really too poor to 
afford the purchase. But in order to settle the 
controversy beyond all question, we were willing 
to take the worthless bit of sand and swamp, and 
pay all we could for it. Jefferson himself wrote : 
"We are an agricultural people, poor in money 
and owing great debts. . . . The country which 
we wish to purchase is barren sand. We cannot 
make anything by a sale of the land to individuals. 
So that it is peace alone which makes it an object 
to us, and which ought to make the cession of it 
desirable to France." At the same time he added 
— he was writing to Dupont de Nemours — that 
"the use of the Mississippi is so indispensable 
that we cannot hesitate one moment to hazard our 
existence for its maintenance." In other words, 
we were too poor to buy the worthless land, yet for 
the sake of peace would try to do so ; but if we 
were not permitted to do so, we would go to war 
for it! 

From one point of view, this was shrewd diplo- 
macy. But it was hopelessly ineffective. Bona- 
parte, who had become First Consul for life, and 
had already taken the measure of his own head 
for the imperial crown, laughed it to scorn. He 



94 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

proposed to hold every inch of Louisiana, add to it 
Florida and perhaps other Spanish territories, and 
build up in America a French empire that would 
surpass Canada, overshadow the United States, 
and dominate the continent. Had the Peace of 
Amiens endured, he might have made good his 
ambitious plans. But that peace was suddenly 
broken. England and Austria became actively 
hostile, beginning a campaign against him which 
ended only at Waterloo. The English fleet made 
it impossible for him to send an army to Louisiana. 
His Haytian campaign failed disastrously. His 
secret agents assured him that without sending 
over an enormous army it would be impossible to 
hold Louisiana against an American invasion — an 
invasion which was actually imminent, as the enlist- 
ment of eighty thousand volunteers showed. Even 
could he have sent to Louisiana the twenty-five 
thousand men he had assigned for that expedition, 
it was doubtful if they would be sufficient. More- 
over, he needed them at home in his war with Eng- 
land and Austria. He needed ready money for that 
war, too. Finally, there was nothing more desir- 
able than to alienate America from England, and 
win the former as an ally of France. 

Impelled by such considerations, Bonaparte re- 
versed himself in the twinkling of an eye, with a 
celerity which made Jefferson's change of policy 
seem slow. Ignoring the protests of his brothers, 
their threats to appeal to the Convention, and the 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 95 

probable opposition of the latter body, he person- 
ally dictated to the astounded American envoys 
an offer not only of the bit of land they had 
sought, but of the whole French erajDire in Amer- 
ica — or rather solicited from them an offer for it. 
Monroe and Livingston were in a dilemma. They 
were much impressed by the offer which was pre- 
sented to them. They appreciated the enormous 
advantages which improvement of the opportunity 
would secure for America. Yet, they were bound 
by their instructions. Congress had provided only 
^2,000,000 for the settlement of the Mississippi 
question, and that would not be nearly enough for 
so vast a purchase. Moreover, they had been 
specifically directed to negotiate for merely the 
land east of the river, and the order had been 
given to them by the chief of the " strict construc- 
tionists," who was likely to hold them to the letter 
of their commission as strictly as he would hold 
the government and the nation to the letter of the 
Constitution. 

Happily, however, the spirit of Jay and Adams 
and Franklin was still alive and potent. If those 
earlier commissioners had violated their orders 
that they might secure the eastern half of the 
Mississippi Valley, these later ones might well do 
the same in securing the western half of it. Their 
resolution was promptly taken. The bargain with 
Bonaparte was made, for the absolute and per- 
petual cession to the United States of the entire 



96 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

French territory on the North American continent 
— a territory extending through twenty degrees 
of latitude and twenty-five degrees of longitude, 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lake of the Woods, 
and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky 
Mountains. The purchase price was $15,000,000. 
The treaty effecting this stupendous transfer of 
sovereignty was signed on April 30, 1803, without 
the knowledge of a single person in the United 
States, and of course without a hint of authoriza- 
tion. When the news of it reached Jefferson, he 
perceived that the commissioners had far exceeded 
their instructions and their authority, and that if 
he approved their work he would be similarly ex- 
ceeding the authority which Congress had bestowed 
upon him, and which the Constitution had, as he 
believed, made it possible for Congress to bestow 
or to exercise. And, as we have said, he was the 
chief of the "strict constructionist" school of 
statesmen. But what were instructions and author- 
ity, what was an act of Congress, what was the 
Constitution itself — for which, indeed, Jefferson, 
though a "strict constructionist," never had the 
most profound reverence — when the possession 
of an empire and the preservation of the Republic 
and the safeguarding of its welfare were at stake .'' 
Jefferson never hesitated. He approved the work 
of his envoys, and took steps, secret but strong, to 
secure the approval of Congress. It would be 
well, he said, to proceed quietly, even secretly. 



THE NATION FIRST ENTERS IN 97 

He had acted in advance of authorization. Now 
authorization must be secured after the act. He 
called Congress together, in special session, on 
October 17. A bill was promptly introduced "to 
enable the President to take possession of the 
territories ceded by France." On October 26 it 
was passed, and on October 31 it became a law, 
and another monumental violation of orders was 
condoned and approved. 

Thus was the first act of national expansion ef- 
fected. We have seen that the efforts at expansion 
in colonial and revolutionary times resulted in the 
acquisition of the territory between the Alleghany 
Mountains and the Mississippi River, The first 
act of expansion by the nation won for it the terri- 
tory between that river and the Rocky Mountains. 
That territory now comprises the whole of the 
states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, 
Nebraska, the two Dakotas, and Montana, the Gulf 
frontage of Mississippi and Alabama, the greater 
parts of Minnesota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kan- 
sas, the Indian Territory, and most of the territory 
of Oklahoma. Its civilized population in 1803 was 
forty-two thousand ; now it is fifteen miUions. The 
geographical importance of the territory was com- 
parable with its size. The acquisition of it removed 
from this continent the last remaining power that 
could ever rival or menace us. Spain still held 
East Florida, but that was a small country. She also 
held Texas, Mexico, and California, but those regions 

H 



98 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION- 

were remote and were supposed to be largely unin- 
habitable deserts, at least in portions bordering upon 
our domain. The United States was in possession of 
all the supposedly useful and valuable parts of the 
continent, and had at last attained the end which 
the colonists originally had in view in migrating to 
America, and which the revolutionists had in view 
in winning independence from the mother country. 
We were free from European control, and suffi- 
ciently free from contact with European colonies. 
The United States was at last in a position in which 
it might fulfil the ideal set by Jefferson in 1801 : 
" Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all 
nations, entangling alHances with none." 

There was no longer need of an entangling alli- 
ance with France or Spain to secure for us the free 
use of the Mississippi, or with England to compel 
their granting of it. The first great act of expan- 
sion, with all that it implied and involved, was an 
established fact. 



CHAPTER IV 

EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 

The material effects of the Louisiana Purchase 
were enormous. At least comparably great were 
its constitutional and moral effects. If, as we have 
said, the nation had found itself, in strength and 
determination, at an earlier date, in this event it 
found itself again and more fully, in appreciation 
of the Constitution which it had made and in inter- 
pretation of that instrument in the light of mani- 
fest destiny. In a hundredfold magnified degree 
was there impressed upon the nation the fact that 
power involved responsibilities and obligations, and 
that progress involved further progress. We have 
already cited eminent authorities to the effect that 
the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, 
and the Ordinance of 1787, were the three great 
charters of American liberty. Without dissenting 
from that opinion or in the least detracting from 
it, we may add that the Louisiana treaty was, or 
at any rate called forth and compelled, the greatest 
of all comments upon and expositions of those 
charters. No other act of our government has 
ever brought forward so important an array of con- 

99 

LcfC. 



100 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

stitutional problems as did the purchase of Louisi- 
ana, nor has any since the Constitution was framed 
so powerfully directed the development of our in- 
stitutions and determined the destinies of the na- 
tion. This was made clear in that brief session of 
Congress in October, 1803. There were not many 
days of debate over the approval of Jefferson's act. 
But those days were pregnant with the settlement 
of fundamental questions, and with the beginnings 
of many years of earnest debate and of bitter conflict. 
How widely opinions of men of light and leading 
differed upon affairs of state in those days may be 
estimated from the single fact that Hamilton held 
the acquisition of Louisiana to be essential to the 
perpetuation of the Union, and Josiah Quincy as 
firmly believed it to be fatal to it ! 

The first, though by no means the most impor- 
tant, question raised in Congress concerned the 
right of France to sell us the territory. It was 
pointed out that while France had purchased it 
from Spain, she had never perfected her own title 
to Louisiana by actual occupation and administra- 
tion. She had not yet paid Spain for it, and in 
connection with the Treaty of San Ildefonso she 
had promised Spain not to transfer Louisiana to 
any other power. It was therefore doubted by 
some whether France was morally or legally em- 
powered to give us a clear title to the territory, 
and it was feared that Spain might make some 
effective protest against our assumption of the title 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION lOI 

taken from France. Jefferson had no doubts and 
no compunctions on that score, however, and his 
supporters in Congress readily rephed to such ob- 
jections. We were deahng with France and not 
with Spain. France professed to be able to give 
us a valid title to the property, and we could not 
"go behind the returns " and challenge her right 
and power to do so. By the very fact of our 
negotiations with her, we had practically accepted 
her guarantees as satisfactory. Moreover, the 
Spanish authorities at New Orleans had them- 
selves assured us that France had become the 
owner of Louisiana and that we must look to 
France and no longer to Spain for permission to 
navigate the Mississippi. If, therefore, Spain was 
in any way aggrieved in the matter, she must look 
to France and not to us for redress. Such reason- 
ing was logical and convincing, and that objection 
to the treaty was thus disposed of. 

There next arose the far greater and funda- 
mental question of the right and power of the 
United States, under the Constitution, to acquire 
new territory. Jefferson himself did not claim 
such right and power. On the contrary, he ex- 
plicitly and confidently denied them, though in 
so doing, as we shall presently see, he contradicted 
himself. He was a "strict constructionist," and 
as the Constitution did not say in so many words 
that the United States might acquire new terri- 
tory, he denied the ability of the United States to 



102 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

do SO. He wrote to John Dickinson, on August 8, 
1803: ** There is a difficulty in this acquisition 
which presents a handle to the malcontents among 
us, though they have not yet discovered it. . . . 
The General Government has no powers but 
such as the Constitution has given it, and it has 
not given it the power of holding foreign territory, 
and still less of incorporating it into the Union. 
An amendment of the Constitution seems neces- 
sary for this. In the meantime we must ratify and 
pay our money, as we have treated, for a thing be- 
yond the Constitution, and rely on the nation to 
sanction an act done for its great good, without its 
previous authority." Three days later he wrote 
practically the same to J. C. Breckenridge, adding : 
"The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence 
which so much advances the good of their country, 
have done an act beyond the Constitution. The 
Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical 
subtleties, must ratify and j^ay for it, and throw 
themselves on their country for doing for them 
unauthorized what we know they would have done 
for themselves had they been in a situation to do 
it. . . . We shall not be disavowed by the nation, 
and their act of indemnity will confirm and not 
weaken the Constitution." 

In those utterances spoke at once the strict con- 
structionist, who could not see beyond the imme- 
diate letter of the Constitution, and also the 
statesman who had never fully approved the Con- 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 103 

stitution nor hesitated to speak slightingly of it, 
and who, in commending an insurrection against 
the general government, had declared that "a lit- 
tle rebellion now and then is a good thing." It is 
quite true that the Constitution contained then 
and contains now no provision in direct terms for 
the acquisition of new territory. There is a clause 
giving Congress power to "dispose of" and to 
make all needful rules for the regulation of terri- 
tory belonging to the United States. It is per- 
fectly well known, however, that that was intended 
to guard against the alienation of territory by the 
Executive alone. Patrick Henry and his col- 
leagues made that clear. The king of England, 
Henry argued, could not alienate a part of his em- 
pire without the consent of Parliament, and in like 
manner the President, or the President and Senate 
together as the treaty-making power, ought not to 
be able to alienate any of our territory without the 
consent of the House of Representatives. 

Nevertheless we must maintain that the Con- 
stitution did and does in double measure confer 
upon the general government the fullest right 
and power to acquire territory, and either to incor- 
porate or not to incorporate it into the Union of 
states as it sees fit. That Jefferson and his fellow 
" strict constructionists " were unable to perceive 
the fact is a remarkable indication of the extent 
to which they were blinded by "metaphysical 
subtleties." The one and lesser authorization of 



I04 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

territorial acquisition is to be found in the clause 
concerning the war powers of the government. ^^ 
The Constitution, born of a war, gives to the >' 
general government plenary power to declare 
and to wage war, either defensive or aggressive. 
That power is explicitly vested in Congress. Now 
war implies conquest, and conquest implies the 
acquisition of territory. There is in the Constitu- 
tion no limitation of the power of Congress to 
declare and of the Executive to wage war. There 
is no specification of the kind of war that may be 
waged, of the objects for which it may be under- 
taken, or of the results which may be reaped from 
it. Congress may, under the explicit authority of 
the Constitution, declare war. It is simply war, 
in the fullest and most comprehensive meaning 
of the word. It may be a war of defence, to pro- 
tect the United States from foreign invasion, or 
it may be an aggressive war of oppression, con- 
quest, and spoliation against a neighboring coun- 
try. Moreover, it was obviously understood andv 
intended by the makers of the Constitution that 
this war-power should include the power of con- 
quest, and territorial aggrandizement. For at the 
very time when the Constitution was under con- 
sideration, in 1788, the Fathers of the Constitu- 
tion were demanding a territorial cession from / 
Spain and were threatening a war of conquest 
if it wtvQ refused. On that ground, then, the 
right of the government to acquire Louisiana 
should have been unchalleno:ed. 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 105 

The other and major ground of Constitutional 
authorization is found in the very opening words 
of that instrument : " We, the People ... do 
ordain and establish this Constitution," and, in 
conjunction therewith, in the words of the Tenth 
Amendment : " The powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited 
by it to the states, are reserved to the states 
respectively, or to the people." Now the power 
to acquire territory is a natural power of sovereign 
states. The United States possessed it and exer- 
cised it before the adoption of the Constitution, 
as shown in the acquisition of the Northwest Ter- 
ritory. What became of that power when the 
Constitution was adopted .-* It is not mentioned 
in that instrument, though many others are. But 
it was not annihilated. It could not have been. 
The Constitution itself expressly says that "the 
enumeration of certain rights shall not be con- 
strued to deny or disparage others retained by 
the people." Since then that power is not "dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the states," what becomes 
of it .■* According to the Tenth Amendment it 
must be either " reserved to the states respec- 
tively, or to the people." Now it evidently is 
not reserved to the states, because they are ex- 
pressly inhibited from making treaties, alliances, 
or confederations, or, without the consent of Con- 
gress, from engaging in war or entering into any 



I06 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

agreement or compact with a foreign power. That 
is to say, the states individually are forbidden to 
make use of any of the means of acquiring ter- 
ritory. They cannot, therefore, acquire territory, 
and the power of such acquisition is therefore not 
reserved to them. We come, then, to the only 
remaining alternative, that that power is "re- 
served to the people." Who are "the people".-' 
Manifestly, the citizens of the United States. 
But how do they exercise their legislative and 
executive powers 'i Not by a popular referendum, 
nor in mass-meeting, but through elected represen- 
tatives. When the Constitution was made, "We, 
the People " meant the members of the Constitu- 
tional Convention, who made the Constitution, 
and afterward, perhaps, the members of the state 
legislatures or constitutional conventions which 
ratified it. But the people of the United States 
are just as truly represented in Congress as they 
were in the Convention, and Congress may as 
truly say, as did the convention, " We, the People." 

The power of acquiring territory, then, is re- 
served to the people, and is to be exercised by 
them as their other legislative and executive powers 
are exercised, through the general government. 

The Constitution — and this was the greatest of 
the facts which the Louisiana purchase controversy 
impressed upon the American mind — made of the 
separate and individual states a single, united, 
sovereign nation, with plenary power to do, as a 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 10/ 

nation, all that any nation might do. In the Con- 
stitution the relations of the states among them- 
selves, the relations of the states to the Federal 
government, and the relations of the Federal gov- 
ernment to the states, are all prescribed and 
limited. But upon the relations of the nation to 
other nations and to the world at large, there are 
no limitations. There is no hint of any. The 
power of the nation is unlimited. Jefferson him- 
self should have been the first to recognize and to •, 
maintain this fact, for it was he who wrote in the 
Declaration of Independence that "the United 
States of America, as free and independent states, 
have full power to levy war, conclude peace, 
contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do 
all other acts and things which independent states 
may of right do." Surely, it is unquestionable 
that to acquire and incorporate territory is one of 
"the things which independent states may of 
right do." It is certainly one of the things they 
have been doing ever since the first state was 
formed. The United States is no dwarf nor 
cripple among nations. It wears no self-imposed 
fetters. Its Constitution is no ordinance of self- 
abnegation. It is a nation, the peer in sovereignty 
of any other nation in the world. Whatever any 
nation can legally do, it can do. If France could 
purchase Louisiana from Spain, the United States 
could purchase it from France. That was and is 
the fundamental principle upon which territorial 



I08 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

expansion was and is legally vindicated ; and that 
is, for innumerable other purposes than that of ex- 
pansion, one of the very most important principles 
of our national existence. Jefferson, as we have 
seen, believed such power could be gained by the 
United States, that is, by the Federal government, 
only through another amendment to the Constitu- 
tion specifically declaring and bestowing it. The 
nation did not agree with him but took instead 
Hamilton's view, that such power was fully enjoyed 
under the original draft of the Constitution. 

Next there arose the question. What could we 
do with it .? Granted that France could sell Louisi- 
ana to the United States, and that the United 
States could buy it, what was to be the subsequent 
status of the territory ^ Could it constitutionally 
be incorporated into the Union of states .■" Could 
it be held as a territorial possession outside of the 
Union and not under the Constitution } These 
questions were acutely raised by the provision in 
the treaty of cession, that " the inhabitants of the 
ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union 
of the United States, and admitted as soon as pos- 
sible, according to the principles of the Federal 
Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, 
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United 
States ; and in the meantime they shall be main- 
tained and protected in the free enjoyment of their 
liberty, property, and the religion which they pro- 
fess." It was objected, and not without plausi- 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION lOQ 

bility, that the President and Senate alone were not 
competent to make such a treaty, since it involved 
an obligation which could not be fulfilled without 
the concurrence of the House of Representatives. 
The treaty-making power had no right to bind in 
advance to a certain line of conduct a coordinate 
branch of the government. The treaty promised 
the admission of Louisiana, or a part of it, into the 
Union, but no new state could be admitted into 
the Union save by act of Congress — ^that is, by 
act of House as well as Senate. This contention 
is a familiar one. It has been put forward many 
times since then, the latest being in reference to 
the Cuban reciprocity treaty of 1903, just a cen- 
tury after the Louisiana debate. It is from one 
point of view well founded. A treaty affecting the 
revenue laws of the United States cannot be en- 
forced without the sanction of the House of Rep- 
resentatives, to which the Constitution grants the 
initiative in revenue matters. A treaty promising 
to pay a sum of money cannot be fulfilled until the 
House makes the necessary appropriation. This 
Louisiana treaty could not be fulfilled until the 
House appropriated the purchase money. Neither 
could it be fulfilled in the admission of Louisiana 
into the Union until the House voted for such 
admission. That fact was indeed recognized in 
the making of the treaty, for it will be observed 
from the citation already made that the treaty did 
not promise such admission absolutely, on its own 



no A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

authority, but "as soon as possible, according to 
the principles of the Federal Constitution" — that 
is, as soon as the House should see fit so to vote. 

Objection was further made to the treaty on the 
ground that it gave to the ships of France and 
Spain for the term of ten years the same privileges 
and immunities that American ships would enjoy 
in the ports of Louisiana. This, it was pointed 
out, would specially favor New Orleans and other 
Louisiana ports above all other American ports, 
and would violate the Constitutional provision that 
" no preference shall be given by any regulation 
of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state 
over those of another." To this the answer was 
obvious, and bold. It was simply this, that Louisi- 
ana was not a state, and that its ports were not 
"ports of one state" in the sense intended by the 
Constitution. In brief, the Constitution did not 
yet apply to Louisiana, and would not until that 
territory was erected into a state, or the Constitu- 
tion was specifically extended to it by Congressional 
legislation. The same answer was given to the 
adnate but minor objection that the treaty aimed 
to regulate commerce by Presidential action in- 
stead of by Congressional enactment as provided 
by the Constitution, 

These questions thus disposed of, there next 
arose the general one of the power of the 
nation to hold and of Congress to govern a 
territory outside of the Union and not under the 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 1 1 1 

provisions of the Constitution. That question, 
too, is a famihar one and has been raised again 
and again in the last few years. It is evident that 
the makers of the Louisiana treaty believed in the 
existence of that power. The fact that they 
thought it necessary to insert that stipulation as 
to statehood and citizenship indicates that they 
believed that without such stipulation Louisiana 
would have had no natural rights to admission, but 
might have been held indefinitely and perpetually 
as a colony outside of the Union. The insertion 
of the stipulation as to the inhabitants' "free en- 
joyment of their liberty, property, and religion " 
similarly indicated a belief that they would not 
come under the Constitution until Congress ad- 
mitted them to citizenship and statehood. If by 
the simple act of purchase and annexation the 
territory had been brought under the Constitution, 
that stipulation would have been altogether super- 
fluous, for that freedom would have been adequately 
guaranteed by the Constitution. Substantially, 
therefore, the principles were established that the 
United States had the power to acquire territory, 
by conquest or by purchase, and that it had the 
supplementary power either to incorporate it into 
statehood or to hold it outside of the Union, 
and outside of the detailed provisions of the Con- 
stitution. The Constitution was a domestic docu- 
ment, which did not regulate or control our 
dealings with foreion nations and which did not 



112 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

apply to any territory we might acquire from 
foreign nations unless and until we specifically 
extended its application thereto. 

In this questioning and objecting we have an in- 
teresting illustration of the evils arising from lack 
of perspective. The men of 1803 were still too 
near to the doings of 1780 and 1787 to realize the 
full purport of them. In October, 1780, the Con- 
tinental Congress formally established the princi- 
ples that the lands west of the Alleghanies should 
" be disposed of for the common benefit of the 
United States," that they should be thus disposed 
of " at such times and under such regulations is 
shall be agreed on by Congress," and that they should 
" be formed into distinct Republican States " which 
should become " members of the Federal Union." 
Those principles were enunciated years before the 
title of the United States to thos.e lands had been 
finally confirmed, and before there was any definite 
delimitation of the lands which the United States 
intended or expected to acquire. These principles 
were therefore established for property not only in 
esse but also merely in posse. They were made 
for the regulation and disposition of whatever lands 
might in future be acquired. It is true that act of 
the Continental Congress long antedated the Con- 
stitution, and was not repeated in the latter. But 
it was an act of the people, through their repre- 
sentatives, expressive of their rights, powers, and 
intentions, and as there was no denial nor modifica- 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION II3 

tion of it in the Constitution it logically remained 
valid, the expression of one of the " reserved 
powers " of the people, or of the nation. As soon 
as the Ohio country was finally secured by the 
Treaty of Paris in 1783, Jefferson made haste to 
give those principles practical force in a law ap- 
plying them to that territory — the famous Ordi- 
nance of 1787. Certainly it would have been 
quite logical to do the same again in the case of 
Louisiana. 

Opposition to the treaty was, however, bitter 
and persistent ; based not upon technicalities but 
upon general principles of expediency. One de- 
clared Louisiana was too remote from the national 
capital ; its settlers from the states would become 
aliens ; they would presently separate themselves 
from the Union. Jefferson himself seemed to 
regard it as quite possible, and as not altogether 
undesirable, that there would in time be a separate 
republic established in the Mississippi Valley. 
Others argued that the United States already had 
territory enough ; that the people of Louisiana 
were aliens to us in race, tongue, and creed ; that 
the addition of that vast and fertile territory to our 
domain would draw people away from the eastern 
states and leave the latter uninhabited wildernesses ; 
that the price to be paid was far beyond our ability 
to pay and was far more than the territory was 
worth ; and that the whole business was a bit of 
Presidential usurpation, which Congress ought not 



114 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

to sanction, lest it lead to a dictatorship and 
despotism. 

Such were the arguments upon which the 
^ changes were vigorously rung. Senator White, of 
Delaware, declared : " As to Louisiana, this new, 
immense, unbounded world, if it should ever be in- 
corporated into this Union, which I have no idea 
can be done but by altering the Constitution, I 
believe it will be the greatest curse that could at 
present befall us. ... I would rather see it given 
to France, to Spain, or to any other nation of the 
earth, upon the mere condition that no citizen of 
the United States should ever settle within its 
limits, than to see the territory sold for a hundred 
millions of dollars and we retain the sovereignty." 
Senator Pickering, of Massachusetts, conceded 
the power of the United States to acquire and 
hold territories as territories, but insisted that no 
mere two-thirds vote would be sufficient to incor- 
porate them into the Union. " He believed the 
assent of each individual state to be necessary for 
the admission of a foreign country as an associate 
in the Union ; in like manner as in a commercial 
house the consent of each member would be neces- 
sary to admit a new partner into the company." 
Senators Tracy and Hillhouse, of Connecticut, and 
Senator Wells, of Delaware, expressed similar 
views. But these were all in that branch of Con- 
gress. Their five votes were recorded against the 
purchase, while twenty-six were in its favor. In 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 1 1 5 

the House of Representatives the debate was 
much more prolonged, the opposition being ably- 
led by Roger Griswold, of Connecticut, and Samuel 
L. Mitchill, of New York, and the treaty being 
advocated and defended by John Randolph, of 
Virginia, and Caesar Rodney, of Delaware. Reso- 
lutions approving the treaty and recommending 
the enactment of legislation for its fulfilment were 
finally adopted by a vote of 90 to 25. 

Thus strongly was the great transaction ap- 
proved by the representatives of the states and of 
the people of the United States. The debates 
were renewed in great detail over subsequent bills 
for the division and government of the territory, 
but those measures were similarly carried. The 
fact is that the objections to annexation were 
largely discounted by the circumstance that they 
were put forward by Federalists who had formerly 
supported Hamilton's schemes of continental 
conquest. These gentlemen were now opposing in 
Jefferson what they had approved in Hamilton, 
just as Jefferson himself was now advocating what 
he had formerly condemned when it was proposed 
by Hamilton. Their opposition was therefore 
regarded as political and factional, and not as 
patriotic or inspired by principle. Moreover, they 
were effectively answered by counter-arguments, 
based both upon constitutional principle and upon 
the practical advantages to be gained for the 
country from the proposed step. As we have 



Il6 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

seen, the treaty triumphed. Livingston and 
Monroe had exceeded Jefferson's instructions to 
them, and Jefferson had acquiesced. Jefferson had 
exceeded the authority given to him by Congress, 
and Congress acquiesced and ratified his " usurpa- 
tion." If in doing so Congress exceeded its Con- 
stitutional power — but it did not — the people 
acquiesced, and the logic of subsequent events has 
splendidly vindicated the whole procedure. 

Meantime the acquisition of Louisiana was made 
effective by actual occupation. Never yet had 
Spain transferred the government to France. 
This had to be done before France could surrender 
it to the United States, and it was done, with little 
ceremony, on November 30, 1803, a wretchedly 
stormy day, which circumstance the sentimental 
Sjoaniards regarded as emblematic of their grief 
at being severed from the Iberian realm. The 
transfer to the United States was made on Decem- 
ber 20 following. The United States Commis- 
sioners who received the sovereignty from the 
French officials were W. C. C. Claiborne, the able 
and tactful governor of Mississippi, and Wilkinson, 
the detestable traitor who at that time dishonored 
the American army by being its commanding 
general. The day was clear and bright, and the 
scene in the Place d'Armes in New Orleans was 
a picturesque one, with throngs of aristocratic 
Creoles in gay-colored silks and velvets, negro 
slaves, French and American soldiers in full uni- 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION WJ 

form, and backwoodsmen in buckskins and red 
flannel. A huge Tricolor floated at the top of 
the flagpole, and a new Stars and Stripes of equal 
size lay on the ground at its foot. A French sol- 
dier and an American began together pulling at the 
halyards. The French flag slowly descended and 
the American flag slowly rose. Midway on the 
pole they met and for a moment fluttered side by 
side. At that instant a single gun was fired, to 
denote the exact moment of the transfer of sover- 
eignty. Then the deposed French flag descended 
and disappeared, while the triumphant American 
flag rose to the top of the pole, and every gun in 
the city roared forth a national salute. Thus sim- 
ply but irrevocably the deed was done. Thence- 
forth forever the continent was ours, from the 
margin of the Atlantic Ocean to the crest of the 
Rocky Mountains. The nation had mightily en- 
tered in through the open door and had taken pos- 
session of a mighty realm. But in so doing it had 
opened, or demanded and made necessary the 
opening of, yet other doors, with consequences of 
inestimable moment. 

After acquisition, government. In time Louisiana 
was to become an autonomous state of this Union. 
But that time was not yet, and meanwhile the ter- 
ritory must have some government. Congress had 
under the Constitution the power to make laws for 
it. But Congress did not do so for some months. 
In the interim, Jefferson, with Congressional 



Il8 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

authorization, appointed Claiborne, the governor of 
Mississippi, to be governor at New Orleans, with 
"all the powers heretofore held and exercised by 
the Governor-General and Intendant of the Prov- 
ince." In this was involved another amazing self- 
contradiction. Jefferson had, in the Declaration 
of Independence, spoken of governments among 
men as "deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed." This was one of those 
expressions which Rufus Choate afterwards de- 
scribed as " glittering and sounding generalities 
of natural right," but it formed and still forms an 
effective catchword, and like " that blessed word 
Mesopotamia" is often repeated as an eternal 
verity by those who never approximate to serious 
consideration of its meaning, or lack of meaning. 
Taking it, however, for the moment, at its apparent 
face value as an expression of Jefferson's creed, it 
is to be observed that in this Louisiana business he 
violated it in as flagrant a manner as George III 
could ever have done under Lord North's most pur- 
blind and malign encouragement. He violated it 
in the act of purchase. The sovereignty of Loui- 
siana, and of the tens of thousands of civilized 
inhabitants of European origin, was bought and 
sold as one would buy and sell so many pounds of 
cheese, without ever asking the consent of a single 
one of those inhabitants, or even letting them know 
what was being done until it was done past recall. 
The people of Louisiana were not consulted about 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION I19 

their transfer from French to American sovereignty, 
nor were they consulted about their subsequent 
status. Nobody asked them if they wished or con- 
sented to be made citizens of the United States and 
to have their territory admitted into the Union. 
That provision was inserted into the treaty without 
their consent and without their knowledge. A man 
buying a horse and agreeing to keep him in a certain 
stall could not be less regardful of the " consent of 
the governed " than was Jefferson in buying Louisi- 
ana. Nor did the repudiation of his "glittering gen- 
eralities" stop there. The Jeffersonian Congress, 
with John Randolph at its head, unhesitatingly 
voted to place the government of the territory for a 
time in Jefferson's hands, without restraint. He was 
made the absolute autocrat of the whole region and 
of its inhabitants. The President of the United 
States was endowed with all the despotic powers of 
the king of Spain, and he in turn made his governor 
as arbitrary as a Spanish captain-general ! 

So matters went on until the end of March, 1804, 
when Congress enacted a regular territorial law for 
the government of Louisiana until it was ready for 
statehood. In that law little attention was paid to 
the " consent of the governed." The people were 
not to govern themselves. They were to have no 
voice in their government. They were to be en- 
tirely subject to a governor and council of thirteen 
members, all appointed by the President of the 
United States. Nor was the government thus 



120 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

established over them so benevolent as to win their 
unreserved approbation. On the contrary, it was 
highly unsatisfactory to them. They held a mass 
meeting to protest against it. They complained 
that the province had been divided into two 
territories without their consent ; that English 
had been substituted for French as the official lan- 
guage ; that their right to trial by jury was re- 
stricted ; that their titles to land were questioned ; 
that their slave trade was suppressed ; that they 
had no appeal from their governor's decrees ; and 
that they did not like their governor, anyway. In 
one or two of these particulars they had probably 
some ground for complaint. Generally speaking, 
however, they were simply trying to hold fast to 
their privileges and customs under their old govern- 
ment and at the same time secure all the advan- 
tages of the new one. Congress was indulgent, 
however, and in January, 1805, passed another law, 
giving them the suffrage and an elected Legisla- 
ture, at which they again grumbled and protested 
because they were not immediately received into 
statehood. In this second stage of territorial gov- 
ernment, however, without their consent, they 
were compelled to remain until April 10, 18 12, 
when they were finally admitted into the Union. 
For all these years they were governed without 
their consent, at the instance of the author of that 
resounding phrase concerning the " consent of the 
2:overned." 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 121 

The disputes which arose over the original pur- 
chase of Louisiana were renewed with, if possible, 
added vehemence, when the time came for erecting 
a part of the territory into a state of the Union, the 
present state of Louisiana. There had been some 
reluctance and, on the part of some, positive opposi- 
tion to the creation of new states out of the terri- 
tory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. 
That territory, however, had been the property of 
the states from the beginning, and its extent was 
fixed and the number of states that could be 
formed from it was limited and known. It was 
a far different matter to create new states out of 
newly acquired territories of unknown extent, when 
there was no telling how many such states might 
thus be made if once the example were set. And 
when all the Louisiana territory was divided into 
states and taken into the Union, there was no 
telling what other lands might not be conquered or 
purchased and erected into states in the same way, 
until the original thirteen states were reduced to a 
small minority of the Union. That is, of course, 
precisely what has happened, the original states 
being now less than one-third of the whole number. 
To the statesmen of a century ago, or to some of 
them, this was a most formidable, portentous, and 
indeed damning outlook. It seemed as bad to them 
as the acquisition and possession of insular colonies 
seems to equally wise and conscientious statesmen 
of the present day. 



122 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

It seemed, moreover, not merely a piece of bad 
judgment, but also a technical violation of the 
Constitution, and a subversion of the principles 
upon which the Republic had been founded. In 
the Congress of that time there was perhaps no 
man more truly representative of a widespread and 
well-matured opinion, and none personally more 
respectable in character and intellectual attain- 
ments, than Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, after- 
ward a distinguished president of Harvard College. 
Speaking in January, 1811, upon the proposal to 
erect the territory of Orleans into the state of 
Louisiana, he declared that it was a matter which 
materially affected the rights and liberties of the 
whole people of the United States. It appeared 
to him to be sufficient to justify a revolution 
throughout the country, and he had little doubt 
it would before long cause such a movement. He 
was disheartened to note the futility of opposition. 
"I am," he said, "almost tempted to leave my 
country to its fate. But while there is life there 
is hope. ... I will yield to no man in attachment 
to this Constitution ; in veneration for the sages 
who laid its foundations ; in devotion to those 
principles which form its cement and constitute 
its proportions. What, then, must be my feelings 
— what ought to be the feelings of any man cher- 
ishing such sentiments, when he sees an act con- 
templated which lays ruin at the root of all these 
hopes.-' — when he sees a principle of action about 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 1 23 

to be usurped, before which the bonds of this Con- 
stitution are no more than flax before the fire or 
stubble before the whirlwind ? . . . I am com- 
pelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion 
that, if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union 
are virtually dissolved ; that the states which 
compose it are free from their moral obligations ; 
and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be 
the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separa- 
tion — amicably if they can, violently if they 
must." 

For this amazing utterance, which at this dis- 
tance seems extraordinary and at the moment 
doubtless appeared to savor of treason, Ouincy was 
called to order by Poindexter, of Mississippi. But 
he defied the remonstrance, and, in order to make 
his words more unmistakable and emphatic, he put 
the closing sentences into writing. The Speaker 
of the House thereupon intervened with a decision 
to the effect that while the earlier part of the 
speech was in order, the concluding sentences, in 
which Ouincy referred to the duty of the states, 
was not in order, and must be withdrawn. Against 
this ruling Ouincy appealed to the House, and was 
sustained by it, by a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three. 
Thus was the right of secession first declared on 
the floor of Congress — though Jefferson and others 
had elsewhere openly proclaimed it long before. 
It was made by a man from Massachusetts. It 
was rebuked by a man from Mississippi. And it 



124 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

was declared by a majority of the House to be 
admissible and in order ! 

But even Quincy's outbreak was not the most 
remarkable feature of that remarkable occasion. 
We have seen that in the acquisition of Louisiana 
Jefferson in more than one important respect re- 
pudiated his own doctrines. But the most extraor- 
dinary piece of self-reversal was reserved for 
Jefferson's chief Congressional lieutenant, John 
Randolph, of Roanoke. That eminent Virginian 
was the foremost and most extreme champion of 
States' Rights, of that time and of all time. He 
quarrelled with Patrick Henry because the latter 
would not uphold States' Rights with sufificient 
strictness, and he regarded Calhoun as almost luke- 
warm in his adherence to that principle. As was 
later said of him, " Beyond Virginia's border line 
his patriotism perished." It was his conviction 
that in order to safeguard the rights of the original 
states, no new state should ever be admitted to the 
Union without the unanimous consent of them all. 
This theory, as we have seen, was also held by 
Pickering, of Massachusetts, and others. But 
Randolph went far beyond mere declaration of 
opinion. So earnest was he in upholding this ex- 
treme doctrine of States' Rights that he refused 
to vote for the admission of any new state. He 
would not vote for Kentucky, or Tennessee, or 
Ohio. Yet now he was the chief champion of the 
admission of Louisiana to statehood ! It was he. 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 1 25 

more than any other man, who urged through the 
House of Representatives approval of the Louisiana 
Purchase, and at a later date admission of Louisiana 
to full statehood regardless of the wishes of the 
other states. Jefferson had declared that to ratify 
the Louisiana purchase without amending the Con- 
stitution would be to " make it " — the Constitution 
— "blank paper by construction." Yet Randolph, 
an extreme strict constructionist, was responsible 
for the doing of that very thing. It was patent to 
all that if the President and a bare majority of 
Congress could add new states to the Union at 
will, States' Rights was a dead letter, for the 
Union might thus be " packed " for the accom- 
plishment of any object, such as Constitutional 
denial of the right of secession. Yet Randolph, 
the arch-advocate of States' Rights, drove the 
Louisiana statehood bill through Congress with 
whip and spur! Later, in 1822, he realized the 
full consequences of his act, and frankly declared 
that had he realized them in advance, he would 
have said to France, " Take back your fatal gift ! " 
It was then too late. The Constitution had not, 
as Jefferson said, been made blank paper by con- 
struction. It had been transformed from dry and 
inelastic paper into a vital and progressive thing, 
suited to the needs of a living and growing nation. 
In the purchase of Louisiana, the development of 
constitutional principles and institutions began, 
national sovereignty was established, and the 



126 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

original Jeffersonian theory of States' Rights was 
discredited. In that great act of sovereign power 
the United States first asserted its nationahty, and 
established the principle which half a century later 
enabled it to suppress rebellion, prevent secession, 
and maintain the Union ; though at the time and 
for long afterward it was not fully conscious of the 
purport of its deed, and to whatever extent it did 
appreciate it was mortally frightened at it — a 
veritable Young Man Afraid of His Horses. 

The purchase and admission of Louisiana did 
even more than to establish the doctrine of Na- 
tional Sovereignty and to destroy that of States' 
Rights. It made the United States dominant in 
the North American continent. It secured for 
this nation that practical isolation from dangerous 
neighbors which had been the aim of the colonists 
from the beginning. It made the absorption of 
Florida inevitable. It made it possible for us to 
proceed with the conquest of Oregon and to gain 
a frontage on the Pacific Coast, which we could 
scarcely have done with a great alien power oc- 
cupying the Mississippi Valley. It brought us 
into direct contact with Mexico and thus led to 
the acquisition of Texas and California. It gave 
us our paramount interest in the West Indies and 
shaped our policy toward Cuba and Porto Rico. 
It similarly gave us interests in the Pacific which 
forecast the annexation of Alaska, of Hawaii, and 
of the Philippines. It gave us our dominant in- 



EXPANSION AND CONSTITUTION 12/ 

terest in the Isthmian Canal. It made possible 
the Monroe Doctrine. It opened the Pandora's 
box from which issued the slavery question, the 
Indian question, the Chinese question, the Civil 
War, the silver question, and many another great 
issue or policy of our later years. Beyond even 
that, it was an event of international importance 
as setting before the world a new and unique 
example of national growth. This is strikingly 
shown in a comparison or contrast of American 
expansion with that of Greece and Rome. In the 
Greek colonies local independence was carried to 
an extreme, with the result that the colonies did 
not strengthen, but rather weakened and menaced, 
the mother country. The Roman provinces, on 
the contrary, were too much subordinated to the 
centralized authority of the imperial city. Toward 
one or the other of these faulty extremes practically 
every important act or process of expansion in- 
clined down to the time of the Louisiana Purchase. 
It was then the lot of the United States to set an 
entirely new example to the world, of a new system 
of expansion, in which the acquired territories be- 
came in due time sovereign and equal parts of the 
sovereign nation. All these things were involved in 
that first great act of territorial expansion. It was 
not merely territorial expansion. It was Constitu- 
tional development. It was the rise of American 
nationality to the full stature of international 
sovereignty. 



CHAPTER V 

"the immutable principle of self-defence" 

Florida followed inevitably upon Louisiana. 
The Spanish power in America was now swiftly 
and hopelessly declining. The sale of the Louisi- 
ana territory to France had swept away the best 
part of its holdings in the northern continent. The 
plottings of Miranda, encouraged by Hamilton, 
had led to general revolt throughout Central and 
South America. Trafalgar had destroyed the 
might of Spain at sea. The "ever faithful isle" 
of Cuba, Porto Rico, and Florida, were all that was 
left of an empire which once embraced the hemi- 
sphere. The islands were still comparatively secure. 
They were not in direct contact with any other 
power, and they were pretty fully colonized by 
Spaniards. But with Florida the case was differ- 
ent. That territory had never been colonized or 
even occupied by Spain beyond a few coast for- 
tresses. It directly abutted upon the United States 
throughout all of its land frontier. It was the 
home or the resort of various Indian tribes, of 
a fierce and truculent character, with which the 
American government was having much trouble. 

128 



" THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE " 1 29 

It was also the resort of pirates and outlaws of 
every description. Practically, it was rapidly fall- 
ing into the condition of a No Man's Land, an 
intolerable thing to have immediately adjoining a 
progressive and industrial community. 

Moreover, alien possession of Florida made a 
break in the continuity of our coast-line, which 
was highly undesirable, and gave alien control over 
narrow seas which were essential highways between 
the two parts of our coast. Finally, there was 
always the possibility that Spain would sell the 
territory to some other power, or that it might be 
seized by some other, that would prove an even 
less desirable neighbor than Spain herself. Flor- 
ida had, indeed, been held by England for twenty 
years, from 1763 to 1783, and had been returned 
to Spain in exchange for the Bahamas. In the 
negotiations of 1783 the United States had agreed 
in a secret passage in the Treaty of Paris to let 
England have broader boundaries in Florida than 
it would accord to Spain. Nevertheless, we must 
regard it as most fortunate for the United States 
that England relinquished Florida to Spain at that 
time. For had England retained Florida, this 
country would not have been able to oust her from 
it as it did the lesser power of Spain, and Florida 
would probably have remained to this day a British 
colony, abutting upon us at the south as Canada 
does at the north, to our inconvenience and pos- 
sible menace. 



130 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

The first dispute withi Spain over Florida arose 
in 1805, concerning the boundary between Florida 
and Louisiana. Jefferson sought to settle it by 
purchase, as in the case of Louisiana, and for that 
purpose sought another appropriation from Con- 
gress. In that he did not succeed. But he ex- \^ 
pressed some decidedly expansionist and imperialist 
views. "We begin," he said, "to broach the idea 
that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of our 
waters, in which hostilities and cruising are to be 
frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon 
as either consent or force will permit us." By 
" Gulf Stream " he doubtless meant the Gulf itself 
and the Florida Straits. But it is amusing to 
recall, and it is a striking illustration of Jefferson's 
fatal lack of a sense of humor, that at the very 
moment when he was indulging in such "spread- 
eagleism," American ships were, according to his 
own admission, being fired upon at the mouths of 
American harbors, and that he was of all men 
probably the most extreme opponent of the crea- 
tion of an American navy, desiring to limit our 
marine force to little gunboats that in time of 
peace could be hoisted upon wagon wheels, and 
dragged inland for storage out of harm's way. 
Somewhat more to the point was it that he wrote 
to J. C. Breckenridge, in August, 1803, that our 
" claims will be a subject of negotiation with Spain, 
and if, as soon as she is at war, we push them 
strongly with one hand, holding out a price in the 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 131 

Other, we shall certainly obtain the Floridas, and 
all in good time." At about the same time he wrote 
to John Dickinson that " the Floridas will fall to us 
peaceably, the first war Spain is engaged in." Thus 
early the United States began to contemplate the 
acquisition of Florida. 

It was to guard against the reoccupation of 
Florida, or its acquisition, by some other strong 
power, that Congress, on January 15, 181 1, adopted 
in secret session a resolution which we may regard as 
foreshadowing in a measure the Monroe Doctrine, 
and certainly as being the prototype of later decla- 
rations concerning Cuba, Hawaii, and other lands. 
The joint resolution was as follows : — 

" Taking into view the pecuHar situation of 
Spain, and of her American provinces ; and con- 
sidering the influence which the destiny of the 
territory adjoining the southern border of the 
United States may have upon their security, tran- 
quillity, and commerce, 

" Be it Resolved : That the United States, under 
the peculiar circumstances of the existing crisis, 
cannot, without serious inquietude, see any part of 
the said territory pass into the hands of any for- 
eign power ; and that a due regard for their own 
safety compels them to provide, under certain con- 
tingencies, for the temporary occupation of the 
said territory ; they at the same time declaring 
that the said territory shall, in their hands, remain 
subject to future negotiations." 



132 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

At the same time Congress enacted a law specifi- 
cally authorizing the President to take possession 
of any or all of the territory of Florida, " in the 
event of an attempt to occupy the said territory, or 
any part thereof, by any foreign power." To that 
end he was authorized to employ the army and 
navy of the United States, and the sum of ^100,000 
was voted for defraying contingent expenses. Ac- 
cordingly, General Matthews, commanding in Geor- 
gia, was instructed to let no foreign power gain a 
footing in Florida. Practically, Congress was thus 
declaring war in advance against any nation that 
should try to purchase or conquer Florida, and war 
against Spain herself if she should try to sell that 
territory. 

In assuming this high-handed attitude. Congress 
was enunciating another of the sovereign rights of 
a nation, namely, the right of self-defence and self- 
preservation. " Salus Reipublicas Suprema Lex." 
And that right was to be exercised even to the 
extent of invading the sovereign rights of another 
nation. Spain was unquestionably the owner of 
Florida. Her title to it was as indefeasible as ours 
to Georgia. As the sovereign owner of it, she had 
the right to sell it to any buyer. Her right to do 
so was as unquestionable as our right to purchase 
Louisiana of France. Yet the United States did 
not hesitate to traverse that right and title of the 
Spanish crown, by saying that it should not sell 
Florida to any other power. Upon no conceivable 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE" 1 33 

principle of law or morals could that declaration of 
the United States be justified, save that "higher 
law " of self-protection. We would not permit 
Spain to do as she pleased with her own if in so 
doing she menaced our welfare. That, after all, 
was merely an application in international affairs 
of a principle which has long had some recognition 
in private and social affairs. Beyond certain hmits 
a man may not do as he pleases with his own land 
or house. He may not do with it anything that in- 
jures or menaces his neighbors. The law of the 
land enforces that principle. International law, for 
obvious reasons, makes no such provision, where- 
fore it is left to each individual state to guard its 
own borders against such injury by its neighbors. 
It was not many years after the enunciation of this 
principle, which was done successfully, in the case 
of Florida, that the United States repeated it in 
the case of Cuba, and in the case of Cuba it main- 
tained it for three-quarters of a century, at times in 
the face of serious opposition from some of the 
chief powers of Europe. 

At the time of making this declaration of rever- 
sionary title to another country's property, the 
United States was well able to maintain against 
that country, if not against all comers, the some- 
what audacious ground thus taken. It was strong, 
while Spain was weak, and the only powers likely 
to seek acquisition of Florida were involved in a 
life-or-death war. But the United States did more 



134 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

than maintain that principle. It presently began 
to make it clear that it proposed to have Florida 
for its own, and that Spain's only choice was 
between selling it to us at our price and having us 
take it by force. For such an attitude no justifica- 
tion was to be found in the law-books. It was to 
be found, if at all, only on the ground of self-pro- 
tection. The possession of Florida was essential 
to our national welfare and security. Therefore 
we proposed to possess it — as in the case of New 
Orleans, amicably if we could, forcibly if we must. 
Between the two cases there was that strong like- 
ness, and there was also a suggestive contrast. 
Madison, Secretary of State, wrote to Livingston, 
Minister to France, in 1801, that the United States 
objected to France's acquisition of Louisiana from 
Spain, because France was a strong power and 
therefore an undesirable neighbor. Now, when 
Madison was President, Spain's continued posses- 
sion of Florida was objected to, because Spain was 
a weak power, and therefore an undesirable neigh- 
bor ! To paraphrase Dow's epigram on predesti- 
nation : You'll be damned if you're weak : You'll 
be damned if you're strong. The simple fact was 
that the United States did not want any European 
power for a neighbor, save only England on the 
northern border, and it proposed to get rid of each 
one in one way or another. 

There were various specific reasons, already 
hinted at, why it was essential to its welfare for 



"THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 35 

this country to annex Florida. One was, that the 
integrity of the coast-Hne might be secured and 
our control of our own coast waters be assured. 
Alien ownership of Florida caused a great gap in 
our coast-hne. Many years before England had 
purchased New York from Holland in order to 
make her coast-line continuous from Maine to 
Georgia. At a later date Spain had maliciously 
tried to persuade England to retain possession of 
Rhode Island, so as to weaken the United States 
by breaking its coast-line. It was necessary to our 
commercial welfare and security that we should 
own the whole coast from Maine to Louisiana. 
This was the more so because of the peninsular 
form of Florida, and the narrowness of the passage 
around its southern end. An alien power holding 
Florida could almost entirely prevent communica- 
tion by sea between our Gulf and Atlantic coasts. 
In these later days we have established the prin- 
ciple, in which the world perforce acquiesces, that 
whatever connection is made by an isthmian canal 
between the Caribbean and the Pacific must be 
under our control and guardianship, because it will 
form a passageway from one of our coasts to the 
other and thus be practically a part of our coast- 
line. Nearly a hundred years ago precisely the 
same principle dictated our control of Key West 
and the Florida Straits. It was the law of self- 
defence and self-preservation. We had for many 
years contended at great cost for use of the Mis- 



136 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

sissippi. It would have been intolerable to have 
connection between the Mississippi and the Atlan- 
tic barred by an alien power in Florida. 

Again, there was the question of the Indian 
tribes on the Florida border. These, the Creeks, 
Seminoles, and others, were among the most war- 
like of all the American aborigines, and their 
subjugation was necessary if the peoj^le of Georgia, 
Alabama, and Mississippi were to be secure in 
their homes. There was no hope, however, that 
Spain would subdue them, or would cooperate 
with the United States in so doing. She was 
neither willing nor able to do so. She had, on the 
contrary, actually incited the Indians to hostilities 
against us, and had supplied them with arms. The 
result was that Florida had become an asylum in 
which the savages could find safety from American 
pursuit, and a stronghold from which they could 
sally forth to ravage the American borderlands. 
Nor were the savages all red men. Florida be- 
came the favorite resort of a host of outlaws of all 
kinds, from horse thieves to pirates. It was in- 
tolerable that we should be permanently harassed 
by the presence of such a den at our very doors. 
If Spain would not or could not put and keep her 
house in order, so that it would cause us no injury, 
we would go in and do it ourselves, under that 
same law of self-protection. 

The first important step toward the acquisition 
of Florida, beyond mere declarations, was taken in 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE" lT,y 

1 8 14, during that War of 181 2 with England into 
which the United States had been tricked by 
Napoleon Bonaparte. There came to the fore at 
that time one of the most conspicuous and forceful 
though not most noble figures in American history 
of the first half of the nineteenth century. 
Andrew Jackson had desired to be made governor 
of the territory of Orleans immediately after the 
Louisiana Purchase, and had been strongly sup- 
ported for the appointment by the Tennessee 
delegation in Congress. Jefferson declined to 
appoint him, however, distrusting his arbitrary and 
violent temper ; on which account Jackson after- 
ward made a bitter attack upon Jefferson, thus un- 
consciously confirming the grounds of Jefferson's 
disapproval and distrust of him. In 1805 Jackson 
became interested in Aaron Burr, and narrowly 
escaped becoming his partner in his " southwestern 
empire " escapade. Burr visited Jackson and 
made a contract with him for boats for the trans- 
portation of his expedition down the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers, and Jackson, supposing the 
enterprise to be directed against the Spaniards, 
whom all Tennesseeans hated, strongly favored it 
and did all he could to promote it. Later he was 
indignant to find that Burr had really cherished 
hostile designs against the United States itself, 
though to the end he believed that superficial and 
unscrupulous schemer to be not nearly as bad as his 
enemies had painted him. 



138 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

As soon as the War of 18 12 broke out, Jackson, 
with two thousand five hundred men, volunteered for 
the service of the United States, and in characteristic 
fashion assured the Secretary of War that his men 
— presumably, too, himself — had no "constitutional 
scruples," but would not only defend New Orleans 
against the British but would also gladly seize 
Florida from Spain. His services were accepted, 
and then dispensed with, without the accomplishment 
of anything practical. In 18 14, however, he was 
made a major-general in the United States army, 
and was put in command of the department of the 
South, with headquarters at Mobile. A little later 
the British occupied the Spanish port of Pensacola, 
in Florida, whether with or without Spanish per- 
mission did not appear, and used it as a base for 
operations against the United States. 

This enraged Jackson and aroused in him that 
blind, unreasoning fury against England and the 
English which thereafter was so dominant a 
characteristic of him and which so largely directed 
his conduct. He wrote to the Secretary of War 
for permission to invade the Spanish territory and 
expel the British. Had he known of or remem- 
bered the Act of Congress of 181 1, he might have 
thought himself sufficiently authorized to do so 
without special permission. As it was, he waited 
upon the word of the Secretary of War. That 
officer replied that he should first ascertain whether 
the Spanish had assented to the British occupation 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 39 

or not. That reply did not reach Jackson until 
the end of the war, and was never acted upon. 
Meantime the British made a futile movement 
against Jackson at Mobile, whereupon Jackson 
took the aggressive, and without waiting for per- 
mission marched into Florida, as indeed he had a 
natural right to do. He quickly captured Pensa- 
cola and drove the British away, and then, a few 
days later, withdrew from Spanish soil and re- 
turned to Mobile. His invasion and occupation of 
Florida lasted only a few days. But the principle 
of it was the same as though it had lasted for 
years. He stayed there as long as was necessary 
to accomplish his purpose. It was the principle 
that we had a right to invade the dominion of 
another sovereign power for our own defence and 
safety. 

This incident, of course, strongly emphasized the 
desirability of getting rid of Spain as a next 
neighbor in Florida. If Spain assented to the 
British occupation of Pensacola, she thus made 
herself England's ally and our enemy, and justified 
our retaliation upon her. If she did not assent to 
it, she was too weak to prevent it, and it was intol- 
erable that land abutting upon us should be so 
weakly held that a strong power might at any time 
use it as a base of hostile operations against us. 
In either case, self-defence justified our seizure of 
it and pointed unerringly to our permanent acquisi- 
tion of it as the only satisfactory solution of the 



140 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

problem. The precedent set by Jackson at Pensa- 
cola was not abandoned nor repudiated, but was 
made effective and enduring. 

Three years later another and more significant 
step was taken by the United States. A notorious 
scoundrel named John Aury, at the head of a gang 
of smugglers, slave-traders and pirates, had made 
his headquarters on the island of Galveston, on the 
Texas coast, then in the possession of Spain 
though the title to Texas was still in dispute. 
Disregarding Spanish sovereignty, since it did not 
make itself effective for the suppression of the 
nuisance, the United States sent a naval expedition 
to Galveston, invaded the Spanish territory, and 
drove away the outlaws. The latter then fled to 
Amelia Island, on the Florida coast, and under 
the nominal sovereignty of the Spanish flag con- 
tinued the practice of deviltry, to the great 
annoyance and injury of the United States. 
Protests to Spain would have been vain, though 
continued to doomsday. President Monroe there- 
fore adopted the heroic course. " The right of 
self-defence," he declared, " never ceases. It is 
among the most sacred, and alike necessary to 
nations and to individuals." Relying upon that 
natural right, and finding his technical and official 
authority in the law enacted by Congress in 1811, 
he sent naval and land forces to invade Spanish 
territory, occupy Amelia Island, and break up that 
pirates' nest at whatever cost. This was done 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE" 141 

in 181 7. Aury wanted to negotiate. The Ameri- 
can commanders replied that they were sent 
thither to obey orders and to do their work, not to 
talk about it or to discuss matters with any one. 
" We propose to land a force," they said, " and to 
hoist the American flag." They did so. TheSpanish 
government protested against such an infringement 
upon its sovereign rights. Technically its protest 
was well founded. But technicalities did not count 
against the law of self-defence, a law superior to 
any on the statute-book or in any treaty. The 
American flag was kept flying on Amelia Island, 
and never was hauled down. 

The next year, in 18 18, another invasion of 
Spanish territory, for a similar purpose, was made. 
During the War of 18 12, various British officers in 
Florida had stirred up the Indians and fugitive 
negro slaves to hostility against the Americans 
just across the border in Georgia, and the Spanish 
themselves had regarded such doings without dis- 
favor. At the end of the war a fort containing a 
considerable quantity of arms and ammunition was 
abandoned by the British, upon the Appalachicola 
River. This the negroes took possession of, and 
used as a base of operations against the United 
States. Spain was busy with vain endeavors to 
quell revolution in her Central and South Ameri- 
can colonies, and was unable, even had she so de- 
sired, to maintain order in Florida, and to protect 
the United States from border ravages. Jackson 



142 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

was accordingly appointed to command in Georgia 
to protect that state. In December, 1817, he 
wrote to Monroe, saying, " Let it be signified to 
me that the possession of the Floridas would 
be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days 
it will be accomplished." This course he urged, 
" as an indemnity for the outrages of Spain upon 
the property of our citizens." 

Just what reply Monroe made to him has never 
become known, though it has formed the theme of 
much dispute. It seems impossible that he could 
have approved Jackson's suggestion. But what- 
ever Monroe said, Jackson acted as though he had 
received authority to proceed with the invasion if 
not with the actual conquest of Florida. He 
moved his army close to the Florida line in 18 18, 
and had suppHes sent around by sea and up the 
Escambia River, through Spanish territory, telling 
the Spanish authorities bluntly that if they inter- 
fered with such use of their territorial waters, it 
would mean war. Such conduct did not from the 
American point of view at that time necessarily 
mean a violation of Spanish rights. It has been 
insisted upon by the United States for many years 
that one nation had a natural right to navigate a 
river through another's territory. Jefferson had, 
as we have already seen, asserted that right in the 
case of the Mississippi River. He also put for- 
ward the same declaration specifically concerning 
the Escambia and other rivers crossing Florida. 



" THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 143 

In his letter to John Dickinson, of August, 1803, 
already quoted, he said : " We shall enter on the 
exercise of the right of passing down all the rivers 
which, rising in our territory, run through the 
Floridas. Spain will not oppose it by force." Of 
course, if we had the right to pass down those 
rivers, we had also the right to pass up them. 
Spain, however, never conceded our natural or 
legal right to such navigation, and if she did not 
oppose it with force it was only because she was 
not strong enough to do so, Our assertion and 
exercise of that right, moreover, must be regarded 
as an application of the law that might makes 
right, or at least of the law of self-protection and 
defence as superior to any statute or treaty law, 
and there is little reason to suppose that the United 
States would now concede that right to another 
nation on one of our own rivers. 

Jackson did not, however, content himself with 
the invasion of the territorial waters of Florida. 
In 1 8 19 he also invaded the land. He marched 
his army across the frontier, seized the town and 
port of St. Mark's, and established a government 
there under the American flag. Later he did the 
same at Pensacola. In the course of five months 
he practically accomplished the conquest of 
Florida. In doing so he exhibited all the arbitrary 
authority of an old-time conquistador, and not a 
little of the latter's cruelty and disregard for justice. 
His administration at St. Mark's was stained with 



144 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

the practical murder of four men. Two of these 
were Indians, who were probably guilty of nothing 
more than open warfare against the United States, 
if even of that, and were at least entitled to be 
treated as prisoners of war. Jackson summarily 
hanged them. 

The others were British subjects. One of them, 
Arbuthnot, was an elderly merchant, of unblem- 
ished character and reputation. Jackson accused 
him of inciting the Indians to hostilities and of 
aiding them. There was no proof that Arbuthnot 
had done anything of the sort, or any illegal act 
whatever, but Jackson sent him to the scaffold. 
The other, Ambrister, was a young adventurer of 
dubious antecedents. The same accusations were 
made against him. He was probably culpable to 
some extent, but the court did not take a very 
grave view of his offences, for after first sentenc- 
ing him to be shot it commuted the sentence to 
being flogged and then imprisoned for a year. 
Jackson, however, arbitrarily set the sentence 
aside, and sent Ambrister to the gallows. He at- 
tempted afterward to justify his act on the ground 
that the men were engaged in war against the 
United States while England, of which they were 
subjects, was at peace with us, and that any man 
who engaged in a war to which his own govern- 
ment was not a party was a pirate and an outlaw ! 
In this, his facts were dubious, and his law abso- 
lutely indefensible. The inevitable conclusion is 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 45 

that these men were victims to Jackson's violent 
and unreasoning temper, and to his rabid suspi- 
cion and hatred of England. 

This tragedy brought the United States pain- 
fully close to war with both England and Spain. 
There would doubtless have been war if Spain had 
not been too weak to wage it and England excep- 
tionally forbearing. The President and all his 
Cabinet save John Ouincy Adams at first wanted 
to repudiate Jackson's conduct, and make what- 
ever reparation and apology they could for it. 
But Adams took a different view of the case. Al- 
though he was Secretary of State and thus would 
have to bear the burden of settling matters with 
Spain and England, he insisted upon standing by 
Jackson, upon the ground that in invading Florida 
and suppressing disorder there the United States 
had done only what Spain herself ought to have 
done ; and the fact that Spain had thus neglected 
her duty debarred her from caUing into question 
the conduct of the power that had done the work 
in her stead. This vigorous policy was adopted 
by the government at Washington, and was on the 
whole approved by the people of the United States 
on what Jackson himself called " the immutable 
principle of self-defence." 

Monroe told Jackson that he had transcended 
the limits of his orders, but he did not blame him 
for so doing. " You acted," he said, " on facts 
and circumstances which were unknown to the 



146 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Government when the orders were given . . . and 
which you thought imposed on you the measure as 
an act of patriotism, essential to the honor and in- 
terests of your country." Just so Jay, Adams, and 
FrankHn in 1783 had transcended the Hmits of 
their orders. Just so had Livingston and Monroe 
done in 1803. Thus was the principle practically 
established that the man who is doing the work at 
the front knows better than the man at the rear or 
at a distance how the work should be done, and 
how unforeseen contingencies should be dealt with, 
and that he is, therefore, to be justified in acting 
upon his own responsibility, beyond the limits of 
his orders, and even in direct violation of those 
orders. That doctrine may seem perilous, but it 
is essential, and it is as valid and as appHcable in 
our own present time as it was a hundred years 
ago. So to the roll of patriotic order-breakers, 
bearing the names of Jay, Adams, Franklin, Liv- 
ingston, Monroe, and Jefferson, we must add that 
of Jackson, though with far less honor. Had it 
not been for the younger Adams, indeed, Jackson 
would have been rebuked and repudiated, and it 
was quite characteristic of Jackson that he after- 
ward repaid Adams for his generous and chivalric 
championship of him with insult and slander. 

At the very time when Jackson was thus wag- 
ing his strenuous campaign in the field, diplomacy 
was busy at Washington, seeking an amicable and 
permanent settlement of the issues between Amer- 



"THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEEENCE" 147 

ica and Spain. The Spanish government was 
made to realize that it would not be permitted to 
dispose of Florida to any other country than the 
United States, that it could not much longer retain 
that territory for itself, that it had to choose be- 
tween selling it to the United States for a price 
and having the United States take it by force and 
perhaps without paying a dollar for it, and finally 
that Spain would be held accountable for the dam- 
ages done to United States citizens by the disorders 
on the Florida frontier. It sensibly decided to sell 
out on the best terms it could make, and set about 
it in a shrewd and competent manner. 

The negotiations at Washington were conducted 
by the Spanish minister there, Don Luis de Onis. 
He was a thorough man of business and man of 
the world, cold, calculating, resourceful, and quite 
unscrupulous. There was no factor of persuasion 
or trick of intrigue of which he was not past mas- 
ter. There was no means which would not, in his 
estimation, be justified by the end of gaining ad- 
vantage for his country. Happily, he had in John 
Ouincy Adams a foeman worthy of his steel and, 
indeed, a little more than a match for him. Adams 
was his opposite in many respects, especially in 
manners and morals. In no respect was he his 
inferior in ability or adroitness. Nor was Don 
Luis the only opponent with whom Adams had to 
reckon. Let the laudator temporis acti see to it ! 
There were in those days the same unhappy jeal- 



148 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ousies, rivalries, and intrigues which in these later 
years so mar our politics and cause the unthinking 
to lament the decline of public spirit and of patriot- 
ism. In those days men had already learned to 
jeopard national interests for private spite or pri- 
vate gain, as indeed Lee and Conway and Gates 
and Arnold had done more than a generation be- 
fore. There were those, including men of fore- 
most place and of great and honorable fame in our 
national annals, who for the mean sake of factional 
advantage or personal preferment sought to em- 
barrass the Secretary of State in his negotiations 
with a foreign power, and who preferred that that 
foreign power should gain a victory over the 
United States rather than that a rival of whom 
they were envious should gain the prestige of win- 
ning success for this country. This Adams him- 
self felt keenly. He knew that at least one of his 
colleagues in Monroe's Cabinet was intriguing to 
compass if possible the failure of the negotiations 
over Florida, in order that by thus discrediting the 
State Department he might spoil Adams's prospects 
and consequently improve his own of succeeding 
to the Presidency. Incredible meanness and moral 
treason, such conduct seems to us now, through 
the perspective of fourscore years. Yet we have 
seen similar conduct in our own day, neither more 
nor less base. 

Adams, however, was equal to the occasion, and 
triumphed over both foreign foe and domestic 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 49 

malice. In reviewing his dealings with Don Luis 
de Onis we are reminded of Huxley's definition of 
a well-cultivated mind as "a clear, cold logic- 
enofine." Don Luis himself was not more cold 
and calculating than this otherwise warm-hearted 
and impulsive New Englander. Adams studied 
the various factors in the case as though he were 
solving a problem in mathematics, and when he 
had accurately measured his own strength and that 
of his opponent he stood his ground as inflexibly 
as the granite of his native hills. He declined a 
British offer of friendly mediation, with gratitude 
but with firmness. This was a controversy, he 
declared, in which nobody on earth was concerned 
but America and Spain, and America and Spain 
must settle it between themselves without interven- 
tion. He stated his terms to Spain, and would not 
yield a single detail. In his terms he had, indeed, 
made one concession. That was that the disputed 
western boundary of Louisiana, which France had 
never assumed to fix and which remained unde- 
fined in our treaty of purchase, should be drawn 
at the Sabine River instead of the Rio Grande del 
Norte. Thus Texas was reserved to Spain, and 
therefore to Mexico, to be the subject of a later 
controversy. But Adams would make no other 
concessions, and finally his indomitable resolution 
wore out the Spanish minister, and the latter 
yielded. The treaty was signed on February 22, 
1 8 18. Two days later, despite all factional in- 



150 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

trigues, it was unanimously ratified by the Senate. 
The Spanish government, however, refused to 
ratify it, on the grounds that the United States 
had attempted to put upon the treaty some unwar- 
ranted interpretation of its own, and had tolerated 
or protected an expedition against the Spanish 
province of Texas. These grounds were declared 
by President Monroe to be unsubstantial and insuf- 
ficient to justify refusal to ratify the treaty. " By 
this proceeding," he added in his message to Con- 
gress upon the subject, " Spain has formed a rela- 
tion between the two countries which will justify 
any measures on the part of the United States 
which a strong sense of injury and a proper regard 
for the rights and interests of the nation may dic- 
tate. . . . From a full view of all circumstances, 
it is submitted to the consideration of Congress, 
whether it will not be proper for the United States 
to carry the conditions of the treaty into effect, in 
the same manner as if it had been ratified by 
Spain." 

Congress did not, however, authorize such stren- 
uous conduct, but exercised admirable patience, 
and presently Spain sent over another minister to 
negotiate a new treaty on more favorable terms. 
Toward him. General Vives, Adams assumed and 
maintained an attitude of chilling indifference. 
He had made it plain to the Spanish government 
through Don Luis dc Onis what the United States 
would do and would not do. There could be no 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE" 151 

concessions nor modifications. He would not even 
enter into a discussion of any. The American 
ultimatum had been presented. It was for 
Spain to accept it or to reject it, and take the con- 
sequences ; and she must do so without parley or 
negotiation. The Secretary of State of the United 
States of America had other work to do, and had 
neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in 
endless chafferings over the matter. 

This was a high and mighty attitude for the young 
Republic to assume toward one of the oldest and 
proudest of European monarchies, but it was jus- 
tified in morals and in the event. General Vives 
hesitated, remonstrated, threatened, and finally 
yielded. The granite resolution of Adams wore 
out the pride of Spain. Nearly two years after 
the signing of the treaty by Don Luis de Onis a 
second one was signed by General Vives. It was 
an exact duplicate of the former one, save that the 
remorseless and inexorable Adams inserted into it 
a penalty which Spain must pay for her delay, 
in the specific annulment of extensive Spanish 
land grants in Florida. This treaty was promptly 
ratified by the Spanish king and Cortes. It was 
also ratified by the United States Senate. Like 
its predecessor, it was subjected to secret and open 
attacks by factional and personal enemies, but in 
the end only four votes were cast against it, and 
not one of them was inspired or governed by 
principle. 



152 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Thus the United States secured the whole of 
Florida, for a sum not exceeding $5,000,000, which 
was to be paid not to Spain, but to American citi- 
zens in satisfaction of their claims against Spain. 
Practically, therefore, it was a conquest rather than 
a purchase of Florida. The United States simply 
took possession of that territory as compensation 
for the injuries done to its citizens. That was pre- 
cisely the course which Jackson had proposed years 
before ; only it had been effected under the guise 
of diplomacy and not by outright force. Thus 
was secured for the United States all the North 
American continent south of the Great Lakes and 
east of the Sabine and Red rivers and the Rocky 
Mountains, with an unbroken coast-line from the 
St. Croix to the Sabine. Thus, also, the United 
States gained a dominant frontage upon the Gulf 
of Mexico, and a paramount interest in the West 
Indies. The possession of Florida gave us control 
of the Florida Straits. It also gave us a keen in- 
terest in the great island which lay just south of 
those straits, and prompted Jefferson, in his retire- 
ment at Monticello, to advise, and Adams, in his 
office as Secretary of State, to declare to the world 
that the same reversionary title which we had 
maintained in Florida would thereafter be estab- 
lished and maintained over Cuba, so that the sale, 
conquest, or other transfer of that island would not 
be permitted. From these same circumstances, 
also, arose our vital interest in the proposed canal 



^^THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 53 

across the Central or South American isthmus, 
which finally led to the enunciation of the pohcy 
of "an American canal under American control," 
and practical announcement that no other power 
than ourselves would be permitted to construct 
and control such a waterway. Again, from this 
acquisition of Florida, and from the " immu- 
table principle of self-defence" which prompted 
it and justified it, arose a few years later that 
Monroe Doctrine which for three-quarters of a 
century has been a dominant note of our foreign 
policy. 

We have seen that in relation to Florida the 
American government laid down the principle that 
the transfer of that territory to other European 
sovereignty was inadmissible. It must remain 
Spain's or become ours. The same principle was 
next adopted concerning Cuba. The next step 
was perfectly logical. It was taken in July, 1823, 
when Adams bluntly told the Russian minister. 
Baron Tuyl, that " we should contest the right of 
Russia to any territorial establishment on this con- 
tinent, and should assume distinctly the principle 
that the American continents are no longer sub- 
jects for any new European colonial establish- 
ments." In that bold utterance was the potent 
germ of the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed nearly 
five months before Monroe embodied it in his 
message and gave it to the world to be known for- 
ever after by his name. Beyond doubt the Monroe 



154 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Doctrine was made possible and necessary by our 
territorial expansion. 

The Florida annexation had other important 
results. It left the title to Texas, which France 
had been willing for us to take if we could in 
taking Louisiana, to Spain, and so entailed upon 
us a later conflict for the acquisition of that terri- 
tory. It also gave us a nominal title to a frontage 
on the Pacific Ocean, which we had long before 
taken steps to secure. The treaty with Spain 
ceded to the United States all lands north of the 
forty-second parallel and west of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, to wit, the present states of Oregon, Wash- 
ington, and Idaho, and parts of Montana and 
Wyoming, to which, indeed, we already had title 
by virtue of discovery and exploration. Thus the 
United States was confirmed as a Pacific power, 
and in interests which in time led to the famous 
Oregon dispute, to the annexation of Alaska, to 
the acquisition of Hawaii, and to the conquest of 
the Philippines. 

It is instructive to recall that the annexation of 
Florida renewed some of the constitutional and 
legal controversies which had been raised in the 
case of Louisiana. As in the Louisiana treaty, it 
was stipulated that the inhabitants of Florida 
should enjoy religious freedom, and, if they so 
elected, might remove to Spanish territory else- 
where. If they did not thus remove, they were to 
be "incorporated in the Union of the United States 



"THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 1 55 

and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, 
rights, and immunities of citizens of the United 
States." Here was another demonstration of the 
fact that annexation did not, ipso facto, bring terri- 
tory and its inhabitants into the Union. Had it 
done so, the stipulation of religious freedom would 
have been superfluous, since that was guaranteed 
in the Constitution, Again, the first American 
government set up in Florida was entirely regard- 
less of constitutional prescriptions and limitations. 
Jackson was appointed governor in the spring of 
1 82 1, and forthwith gave an illustration of the 
policy which he would have pursued in Louisiana 
had Jefferson made him governor there. He was 
invested, in the act of appointment, with the 
despotic powers of a Spanish governor or captain- 
general, and he exercised those powers with un- 
bridled rigor. He was Legislature, Executive, and 
Judiciary, all in one. He denied the right of the 
writ of habeas corpus, and expelled arbitrarily those 
who ventured to criticise him for so doing. Nor 
did he thus exceed his powers or break his orders. 
The President and Cabinet agreed that in denying 
the privilege of habeas cotpus he was within his 
authority, since the Constitution and laws of the 
United States were not yet extended to Florida. 

Thus again was enunciated the principle, which 
some have strongly challenged in these later days, 
that the Constitution is the fundamental domestic 
law of the states and of the states alone, in their 



\ 



156 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

federal relations, save as it may be specially and 
specifically extended beyond them by their act, and 
that the nation is entirely competent to acquire 
and to hold other territory, outside of the union 
of states, and to do so entirely outside of the prin- 
ciples and control of the Constitution. That prin- 
ciple is absolutely logical and reasonable, and the 
denial of it is as illogical as it would be to say that 
the members of a firm or corporation must main- 
tain precisely the same relations toward their 
employees that they do toward each other. 

There is no doubt as to the mind of the " Fathers 
of the Constitution " upon this subject. Gouver- 
neur Morris, for example, one of the foremost of 
them, who drafted the clause giving to Congress 
the power to make laws for and to dispose of the 
territory belonging to the United States, declared 
that he " always thought, when we should acquire 
Canada and Louisiana, it would be proper to 
govern them as provinces and allow them no 
voice in our Councils." Thomas H. Benton, in 
the next generation, held and expressed the same 
view. Daniel Webster, the " great expounder," in 
a suit before the United States Supreme Court, 
which was decided in his favor, cogently argued as 
follows : " What is Florida .-• It is no part of the 
United States. How can it be .■* How is it repre- 
sented .-" Do the laws of the United States reach 
Florida } Not unless by particular provisions. 
The territory and all within it are to be governed 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'' 157 

by the acquiring power, except where there are 
reservations in the treaty. . . . Florida was to be 
governed by Congress as it thought proper. What 
has Congress done ? It might have done any- 
thing. It might have refused a trial by jury, and 
refused a Legislature." Coming on to a still later 
date, Stanley Matthews, a justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, in an opinion upon a 
polygamy case in Utah, also declared that " the 
people of the United States, as sovereign owners 
of the national territories, have supreme power 
over them and their inhabitants. In the exercise 
of this sovereign dominion they are represented by 
the Government of the United States, to whom all 
the powers of government over that subject have 
been delegated. ... It rests with Congress to 
say whether in a given case any of the people 
resident in the territory shall participate in the 
election of its ofificers or the making of its laws." 
The same principle was expressed by Justice Mor- 
row, of the United States Circuit Court, in a deci- 
sion on an Alaskan case, as recently as 1898. He 
spoke of " the well-established doctrine that the 
Territories of the United States are entirely subject 
to the legislative authority of Congress," and 
added : " They are not organized under the Con- 
stitution, nor subject to its complex distribution of 
the powers of government as the organic law, but 
are the creation, exclusively, of the Legislative 
department and subject to its supervision and 



158 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

control. The United States, having rightfully 
acquired the Territories, and being the only gov- 
ernment which can impose laws upon them, has 
the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and 
municipal, federal and state." 

Thus this important principle has been consist- 
ently maintained for a full century. It began with 
Louisiana in 1803, and is maintained in Porto Rico, 
Alaska, and the Philippines in 1903. It is exactly 
true, as Daniel Webster said in February, 1849, ii^ 
the course of a great senatorial debate with Cal- 
houn : " We have never had a territory governed 
as the United States is governed. . . . Our his- 
tory is uniform in its course. It began with the 
acquisition of Louisiana. It went on after Florida 
became a part of the Union. In all cases, under 
all circumstances, by every proceeding of Congress 
on the subject, and by all judicature on the subject, 
it has been held that territories belonging to the 
United States were to be governed by a consti- 
tution of their own . . . and in approving that 
constitution the legislation of Congress was not 
necessarily confined to those principles that bind 
it when it is exercised in passing laws for the 
United States itself." 

Innumerable other authorities might be cited to 
precisely the same effect. It is not necessary. 
The fact is indisputable. The United States is a 
sovereign nation, and as such it possesses all the 
powers and attributes of perfect sovereignty, in- 



''THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DEFENCE'"' I 59 

eluding that of holding and governing territories 
— provinces, colonies, dependencies, or whatever 
they may be called. That is the fact of the Con- 
stitution. That is the fact concerning the purpose 
and intent of the makers of the Constitution. That 
is the fact concerning the exposition, construction, 
and application of the Constitution for more than 
a century. Whether the principle is theoretically 
right or wrong is not the point of present issue. 
The essential consideration is that it is the fact, 
and that in the maintenance of that fact and that 
principle to-day no new departure is involved. 
Rather are they the revolutionists, seeking new 
and untried paths, who demand the adoption of a 
contrary course of action. 



CHAPTER VI 

AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 

Texas and Oregon, though widely separated in 
geography, are inseparably connected in history. 
The direct interest of the United States began 
in one of them and was reasserted in the other at 
the same time. It was Jefferson's acquisition of 
Louisiana that brought us into immediate contact 
with Texas, and, indeed, with a disputed boundary 
between us and it, and it was the Lewis and Clark 
expedition, despatched at the same time by Jeffer- 
son, that strengthened the title of the United 
States to Oregon which had been founded upon 
the discoveries and explorations of Robert Gray. 

Moreover, as already suggested, it was the acqui- 
sition of Louisiana that made the annexation of 
Oregon practicable. The Louisiana Purchase in- 
cluded the western part of Minnesota, Iowa, the 
Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming, thus causing our 
boundaries to abut directly upon the Oregon terri- 
tory. Without the Louisiana Purchase, Oregon 
would have remained geographically detached and 
isolated from the United States. 

Again, the Texas and Oregon questions were 
further brought to notice and were further con- 

i6o 




TEXAS; AND OKKGUX, SllOWlXG THE AUEAS SEIZEJJ 
FROM MEXICO AXD YIELDED TO GKEAT BRITAIN. 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION i6l 

nected by the Florida treaty. Under that con- 
vention the United States specifically relinquished 
to Spain the shadowy claim upon Texas which it 
had received from France, and in return received 
from Spain full title, as far as Spain could give it, 
to the whole Oregon territory, to wit, all the lands 
west of the Rocky Mountains north of the present 
state of California up to the Russian possessions. 

Thus bracketed together, Texas and Oregon 
continued to be joint objects of controversy until 
they were both at nearly the same time acquired 
by the United States. At the end, however, poli- 
cies concerning them greatly differed, the one 
being secured through discreditable aggression 
and the other being partly sacrificed through 
scarcely less discreditable weakness. 

First, Texas. In purchasing Louisiana, Jeffer- 
son purchased a boundary dispute. The treaty 
did not specify the limits of the territory. It 
merely ceded to the United States " the French terri- 
tory in the Mississippi Valley, as fully and in the 
same manner as it had been acquired by the French 
Republic " by virtue of the secret Treaty of San 
Ildefonso. But neither did the Treaty of San II- 
defonso define the boundaries of the territory 
which France then acquired from Spain. It re- 
ferred to it merely as " the Province of Louisiana, 
with the same extent which it now has in the hands 
of Spain, and which it had when France possessed 
it" — to wit, previous to 1762. In 1762 it was 



1 62 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

described as " all the country known under the 
name of Louisiana." As a matter of fact, its 
boundaries never had been determined. It seems 
to have come under the application of 

" The good old rule . . . the simple plan, 
That they shall take who have the power, 
And they shall keep who can." 

At the east there was little dispute, save in the 
narrow strip along the Gulf, where there was some 
question as to where Louisiana ended and Florida 
began. North of that the Mississippi River was 
the undoubted boundary. At the north there was 
practically no dispute. Louisiana ran up to the 
British line. At the west there was little if any 
question north of the Arkansas River. The Rocky 
Mountains formed the boundary line. There seems 
to be no good authority for the theory, put forward 
by some, that Louisiana extended beyond the 
mountains and included Oregon. 

But in the southwest all was uncertain and un- 
settled. How far did Louisiana extend in that 
direction and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico } 
The French contention, or pretension, never prac- 
tically enforced and certainly not guaranteed to the 
United States, was that it reached to the Rio 
Bravo, now called the Rio Grande del Norte and 
forming the boundary between the United States 
and Mexico. Jefferson held that view. The 
boundary line, he said, was the Rio Bravo, from 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 63 

its mouth at the Gulf to its source in the Rocky- 
Mountains, and thence northward along the crest 
of the mountains. Spain, on the other hand, 
insisted that Louisiana stopped at the Sabine River, 
which is the present boundary between that state 
and Texas, and that the Spanish territory extended 
from the Gulf northward to the Red River, thus 
giving to her what is now the state of Texas. 
Now Jefferson's chief aim was to get complete 
control of the Mississippi River, which was done 
as effectually by drawing the line at the Sabine as 
at the Bravo. Moreover, the country between 
those rivers was at that time unknown to Ameri- 
cans, and was supposed to be a worthless desert. 
Jefferson did not, therefore, insist upon establish- 
ing the boundaries of his purchase at the extreme 
indicated by France. Perhaps, too, there was a 
not unnatural suspicion that, in designating the 
Rio Bravo as the boundary, France was maliciously 
trying to involve the United States in trouble with 
Spain. The French government of that time was 
quite capable of such a trick. At any rate, the 
United States government let the matter lie in 
abeyance for some years. 

It was first taken up for settlement in 18 16. 
Madison was then President, and Monroe was his 
Secretary of State. Negotiations were opened 
with Spain for a general settlement of relations 
between her and the United States. Florida was 
the chief object of dissension, but it was proposed 



1 64 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

at the same time definitely to delimit the Louisi- 
ana boundary. Monroe at that time expressly in- 
timated to the Spanish government that in return 
for a satisfactory settlement in Florida the United 
States would agree to recognize the Sabine River 
as the western boundary of Louisiana, and would 
formally relinquish to Spain all claims on the 
territory beyond that river. To that policy Mon- 
roe absolutely committed the government. Three 
years later, when Monroe had become President, 
John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, 
resumed negotiations with Spain, and proposed to 
his colleagues to make an inflexible demand for the 
fixing of the boundary at the Rio Bravo, so as to 
secure for the United States the whole of Texas. 
Had this course been approved and acted upon, 
Spain would doubtless have yielded, as she did to 
all of Adams's demands, and Texas would have 
been ours without the cost and shame entailed 
upon us in later years. But neither the President 
nor any other member of his Cabinet would agree 
to it. Monroe would not, because he wanted to 
remain consistent with his own declarations of 
three years before. Crawford would not, for the 
almost incredibly unworthy reason that he wanted 
to discredit Adams before the country, and thus, if 
possible, remove the man who more than any other 
stood in the way of his own presidential ambitions. 
The others sided with Monroe and Crawford, for 
one reason or another, and accordingly Adams was 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 65 

compelled to abandon his project and relinquish the 
opportunity of securing Texas in a manly, straight- 
forward, and moral way. In the Florida treaty the 
boundary was fixed at the Sabine River, and Texas 
was surrendered to Spain. It is one of the blots 
upon American history that the followers of An- 
drew Jackson, years afterward, with the fullest 
knowledge of these facts and of the broad-minded 
and courageous patriotism of Adams, had the 
brazen mendacity to declare that Adams had de- 
liberately given away Texas in order to cripple the 
South ! 

This failure to acquire Texas attracted little 
attention for some years. Then the great sec- 
tional question arose, based upon the institution of 
slavery. New states were being admitted into the 
Union, and in order that the balance between free 
states and slave states might be maintained they 
were admitted in pairs, one at the North and one 
at the South together. Thus Maine and Missouri 
were taken into the Union. Then, following upon 
the Missouri Compromise, it dawned upon the 
minds of the pro-slavery leaders at the South that 
a grievous error had been committed in not insist- 
ing upon the possession of Texas. There was 
obviously more room for new states at the North 
than at the South. At the South they could make 
states of Arkansas and Florida, and they might 
make a slave state of Kansas. But that was 
all. At the North, on the other hand, were 



1 66 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

practical certainties of free states in Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, with further pos- 
sibilities in Nebraska and Dakota. Evidently, 
more territory must be secured at the South, or 
the slave states would presently be outnumbered 
and outvoted. The situation became the more 
ominous in 1829, when Mexico, which had become 
independent of Spain and had succeeded Spain in 
the ownership of Texas, abolished slavery. Thus 
Texas was made a free country, and the slave 
states found themselves cooped in between 
the free states north of the Ohio River and the 
free states of Mexico west and south of the 
Sabine. 

Then arose a determination to undo, by fair 
means or foul, the work which Monroe and Craw- 
ford had forced upon Adams ten years before, 
Texas must be acquired and transformed back 
into a slave state. This must be done to provide 
room for more slave states, and thus to keep the 
balance between North and South. Calhoun, the 
greatest of all the pro-slavery leaders, frankly de- 
clared that Texas must be annexed as an alternative 
to secession. Such annexation would strengthen 
the slave power and thus obviate the necessity for 
its withdrawing from the Union. Texas was an 
extensive territory, and was now known to be fertile 
and capable of sustaining a large population. It 
was reckoned that it could be divided into at least 
five states, with ten senators in Congress, and thus 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 167 

counterbalance the five free states which were im- 
pending at the North. 

In this campaign for annexation, however, re- 
cruits were readily secured from the North as well 
as from the South. The spirit of expansion 
was abroad. Men in New England and in the 
North generally remembered that it was Adams, of 
Massachusetts, who above all others had striven to 
maintain our title to Texas, and they were not un- 
willing to move for a vindication of his policy and 
of that title, even by force. Those were days when 
men liked to speak of the " manifest destiny " of 
the United States to "lick all creation," and to be 
bounded " on the north by the aurora borealis, on 
the south by the procession of the equinoxes, on the 
east by primeval chaos, and on the west by the 
Day of Judgment." Colonists began to flock 
into Texas from all parts of the Union, though 
chiefly, of course, from the South, and it was not 
long before these began to talk of declaring their 
independence of the SpanishTndian Republic of 
Mexico, with which they had so little in common. 

As early as June 23, 18 19, indeed, one James 
Long declared Texas to be a free and independent 
state, though nothing came of his act. Two years 
later Austin planted a colony of three hundred 
families from the United States in Texas, with the 
consent of Mexico, which had just become inde- 
pendent of Spain. These were joined by others, 
and in 1826 a convention of them was held at which 



1 68 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

another declaration of Texan independence was 
made. Adams was now President, and he wished, 
if possible, to vindicate his own former policy and 
to repair the fault into which he had been forced 
by Monroe, Crawford, and the others. So he 
directed Poinsett, the United States minister to 
Mexico, to try to purchase Texas for the sum of 
;^ 1, 000,000. Poinsett did not, however, make the 
attempt, perceiving that such a proposition would 
be regarded by the Mexican government as offen- 
sive and insulting. 

Then the demand began to be heard, in the 
press and in Congress, that Texas be conquered and 
annexed, to which pro-slavery men added that it 
should be made a slave state. Generally, men 
spoke of it as a " reconquest " and " reannexation," 
and added the contemptible slander that although 
Texas had been purchased by Jefferson, Adams 
had deliberately given it to Spain, in order to re- 
strict the slave territory and to cripple the South, 
It was amid such unmerited obloquy that Adams 
retired from the Presidency which he had so greatly 
adorned, and was succeeded by the rude and arbi- 
trary Jackson, with the suave and diplomatic Van 
Buren as Secretary of State. 

One of Jackson's or Van Buren's earliest acts 
was to instruct Poinsett again to try to purchase 
Texas, this time for ^5,000,000. Poinsett made the 
attempt, but failed, Mexico promptly and firmly 
dechning the offer. The Mexican government was 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 69 

apparently not as much offended as Poinsett had 
at first thought it would be, but it was alarmed. 
This incident, added to the American colonists' 
former declaration of independence, opened its 
eyes to the danger before it. American coloniza- 
tion, it saw, would mean American conquest. 
Accordingly, in 1830 it forbade the entrance of any 
more American colonists into Texas, a prohibi- 
tion which was largely disregarded. In 1832 the 
United States made a treaty with Mexico, in which 
the Sabine River was confirmed as the rightful 
boundary between the two countries — another 
vindication of Adams, ratified by the very men who 
had been howHng against him for " giving away " 
Texas! Then in 1833 came the deluge. A revo- 
lution occurred in Mexico, and the whole country, 
including Texas, was plunged into anarchy. By 
1835 Santa Anna, president or dictator of Mexico, 
succeeded in reestablishing a semblance of order, 
and asserted his authority over most of the country, 
but not over Texas, which remained in full revolt 
against him and which recognized the time as op- 
portune for securing its independence. 

Jackson, also, thought it a good opportunity to 
renew negotiations for the purchase of Texas, or 
at least of part of it. He seems to have wanted 
chiefly to get an outlet to the Pacific coast, and 
accordingly offered Mexico $500,000 for a narrow 
strip of land extending across the continent north 
of the thirty-seventh parallel. This proposal failed, 



170 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and it began to be evident that the Texas question 
would be settled with the sword. On March 2, 
1836, the Texan declaration of independence was 
formally made, and the Lone Star Flag was raised. 
A few days later came the hideous massacre of the 
Alamo, in which the insurgent American colonists 
were slain to a man. This tragedy aroused the 
fighting spirit of the United States, and from the 
South and West men flocked into Texas in great 
numbers to aid the struggling colonists. On March 
17, 1836, a state constitution for Texas was 
adopted, reestablishing slavery in the extremest of 
terms. Finally, on April 27, occurred the battle of 
San Jacinto, in which Santa Anna was defeated 
and captured, and the Mexican power in Texas was 
forever broken. 

Nominally, however, Mexico still owned Texas, 
and would continue to do so until the United 
States either recognized and defended the inde- 
pendence of Texas or annexed that state to the 
Union. For various reasons, to be seen presently, 
the United States delayed doing either of these 
things. But the determination to do one or both 
of them was unconcealed. Writing in after years 
to William B. Lewis, his confidential friend and 
chief of his notorious " Kitchen Cabinet," Jack- 
son said : " I then determined to use my influence, 
after the Battle of San Jacinto, to have the inde- 
pendence of Texas acknowledged, and to receive 
her into the Union. But that arch-enemy, John 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 171 

Quincy Adams, rallied all his forces to prevent its an- 
nexation. . . . We must regain Texas ; peaceably 
if we can, forcibly if we must. . . . The safety as 
well as the perpetuation of our glorious Union de- 
pends upon the retrocession of the whole of that 
country, as far as the ancient limits of Louisiana, 
to the United States." Thus animated, Jackson 
began systematically bullying Mexico, trying 
either to frighten her into voluntary relinquish- 
ment of her claims to Texas or to provoke her 
into a war in which, of course, she would be 
crushed, and Texas would be forcibly taken from 
her. 

With such ends in view, Jackson sent General 
Gaines with an army into Texas. In July, 1836, 
Congress voted that the independence of Texas 
should be recognized as soon as that state showed 
itself capable of maintaining its independence 
effectively, which was simply a suggestion that 
able-bodied men from the South and West should 
move into Texas in sufficient numbers to be able 
to cope with Mexico. Meantime the government 
of Texas made overtures to the United States. It 
asked outright to be annexed. But Jackson, with 
all his determination to " receive her into the 
Union," delayed to recommend such a step. 
Indeed, he specifically advised delay. Why } 
Because the boundaries of Texas were not yet 
sufficiently determined. They were not extensive 
enough. Let Texas claim more Mexican property, 



172 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and then he would move for her reception into the 
Union. 

This immoral hint was promptly acted upon by 
the American conquerors in Texas. Hitherto, 
Texas had claimed nothing farther west and south 
than the Nueces River as the boundary between 
her and Mexico. Now, at Jackson's suggestion, 
the claim was pushed to the Rio Bravo, or Rio 
Grande del Norte. But even this was not sufficient 
to satisfy the rapacity of Jackson and his followers. 
Mexico was actually willing, in her helplessness 
and despair, to relinquish her claim upon Texas 
and to yield to the United States the whole 
country, not only to the Nueces but also to the 
Rio Grande. But that would not now suffice. 
Jackson was still intent upon getting what he had 
tried to purchase for half a million dollars, a strip 
of territory running across the continent to the 
Pacific at San Francisco, if not the whole of Cali- 
fornia. To gain that end he kept the question 
open, and put forth against Mexico numerous 
claims for indemnities, largely trumped up for the 
purpose of embarrassing that country. The same 
policy was continued by the Van Buren adminis- 
tration, which succeeded Jackson's. Texas asked 
in 1837 to be annexed, but Van Buren declined. 
The reason for thus rejecting the Texan applica- 
tion, as given by John Forsyth, Secretary of State, 
was that its acceptance would have involved the 
United States in a war with Mexico. Upon this 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 73 

reason, which may have been sincerely given by 
some, the known facts of history furnish a sufficient 
commentary. 

The Van Buren administration and much of the 
Harrison-Tyler administration were taken up, so 
far as Texas and Mexico were concerned, with 
futile negotiations and with pretty steady prepara- 
tions by the United States for a wholesale and 
forcible spoliation of Mexican territory. Some of 
the proposals have at this distance a distinctly 
humorous aspect. Thus, Great Britain having in 
1840 offered to mediate between Mexico and Texas, 
and Mexico having declined the offer, the United 
States in Tyler's administration put itself forward 
as a would-be mediator. Mexico seemed to have, 
even in such circumstances, a sufficient sense of 
humor to save the situation. In 1843 there was 
much correspondence between the American and 
Mexican governments upon the subject of the 
annexation of Texas, Mexico making it perfectly 
plain that she would consider such annexation an 
act of unwarranted aggression upon her, which 
she would resist with all the force at her command. 
This intention was explicitly stated by the Mexican 
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Boconegra, on 
August 23, and by the Mexican minister at Wash- 
ington, General Almonte, on November 3, and it 
was reported and commented upon by President 
Tyler in his annual message of December 5. 

Thereafter events moved more rapidly. The 



1/4 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

swaggering and filibustering spirit was abroad in 
the land. Some astute southern leaders pressed 
for annexation of Texas for the sake of gaining 
more slave states. Others, in all parts of the 
land, favored such action just for the sake of en- 
larging the Union, for the sake of beating Mexico, 
or for the sheer lust of war. Disregarding the 
protests of Mexico, the United States proceeded 
to negotiate a treaty of annexation with the Texan 
government, at the same time sending exploring 
parties to spy out the -land for a descent upon 
California and a Vv^holesale looting of Mexican 
territory. The treaty was completed on April 12, 
1844, and was signed by the Texan commissioners, 
and by John C. Calhoun, who had become Secre- 
tary of State at Washington and who was the fore- 
most advocate of the annexation of Texas for the 
reason already quoted. 

Calhoun told the United States Charg6 d' Affaires 
in Mexico that this step " had been forced upon 
the United States in self-defence, in consequence 
of the policy adopted by Great Britain in reference 
to the abolition of slavery in Texas." Seeing that 
the British government had only a few weeks be- 
fore given the most solemn assurances that it would 
not interfere unduly nor assume improper authority 
in the matter, this statement of Calhoun's is not 
easy to explain ; unless on the ground that he had 
not yet become acquainted with the correspondence 
which had passed between his immediate prede- 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 75 

cessor and the British government. What is cer- 
tain is that Calhoun entered Tyler's Cabinet at 
that time for the express purpose of securing the 
annexation of Texas, and also of deaUng with the 
Oregon question. In the Senate, on February 24, 
1847, he declared in the most emphatic manner 
that to himself, above all others, was due the 
credit for the annexation of Texas. He called it 
the " reannexation," adopting the spurious theory 
that Texas had been acquired with Louisiana and 
had afterward been given away by Adams. Yet 
Calhoun himself, and Tyler, too, had supported 
the Florida treaty in which, against the wish of 
Adams, Texas had been thus "given away" — a 
bit of inconsistency, if not of hypocrisy, for which 
Benton one day scourged them in the Senate with 
a whip of scorpions. 

The annexation treaty was immediately sent to 
the Senate for ratification. Tyler and his Cabinet 
fully expected its prompt ratification, and it is 
probable that a large majority of the people of the 
United States would for one reason or another 
have approved such action. But the Senate first 
took the treaty under careful dehberation for some 
weeks, and then, on June 8, rejected it by a large 
majority, and Benton, one of the foremost oppo- 
nents of it, introduced a resolution providing for 
the annexation of Texas as soon as the assent of 
the Mexican government could be obtained. The 
latter was the course which honor dictated, and 



176 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

would probably have been successful had it been 
adopted. But Tyler and Calhoun, for reasons of 
their own, presently to be disclosed, would not 
have been content with such a settlement. 

Two days after the Senate's rejection of the 
treaty, Tyler took the extraordinary and unprece- 
dented step of writing to the House of Representa- 
tives, reporting the Senate's action and making 
appeal to the House against it. He suggested to 
the House that Congress was " fully competent, 
in some other form of proceeding, to accomplish 
everything that a formal ratification of the treaty 
could have accomplished." Thus this unscrupu- 
lous intriguer would not accept as final the judg- 
ment of the Senate upon his treaty, though the 
Senate was constitutionally charged with that 
very function, and sought to carry the matter to 
the House, which under the Constitution had 
nothing whatever to do with treaties, save to pro- 
vide the means for their fulfilment when such 
means were needed. Surely he was thus setting 
a dangerous precedent. The Constitution had 
safeguarded our foreign relations by committing 
to the Senate the ratification of treaties and re- 
quiring for the purpose a two-thirds majority of 
that body. Tyler proposed to break down that 
safeguard by having a bare majority of Congress 
do the thing which, if done at all, should have been 
done by treaty. 

Nothing more was done in that session of Con- 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 77 

gress, but the matter was carried before the nation 
in one of the most remarkable poHtical campaigns 
in its history. The Whigs, in opposition, nominated 
for President Henry Clay, then at the height of 
his great popularity. The Democrats discarded 
Tyler, in spite of his desperate efforts to secure 
their nomination, and selected instead as their 
candidate James K. Polk, a man so little known 
that the profane query " Who the devil is James 
K. Polk .-• " was heard on every hand and became 
a byword of the campaign. The Democrats 
adopted for their war-cry " The reannexation of 
Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon !" and thus 
made their appeal to both North and South. In 
their platform they declared that " our title to the 
whole of the territory of Oregon " (meaning up 
to the Russian border, in latitude 54° 40') " is clear 
and unquestionable ; that no portion of the same 
ought to be ceded to England or any other power : 
and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the re- 
annexation of Texas, at the earliest practicable 
period, are great American measures, which this 
Convention recommends to the cordial support of 
the Union." Upon that platform was triumphantly 
elected the first " dark-horse " President in our 
history. 

Tyler and Calhoun were intent, however, upon 
having the actual annexation of Texas placed to 
their credit before their term of office expired, 
leaving the consequences to their successors. In 



178 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

the winter of 1 844-1 845, accordingly, they secured 
the adoption of a joint resolution by Congress, 
providing for the annexation of Texas as a state, 
and remitting to the United States all of that state's 
boundary disputes, for the nation to settle as best 
it could. That resolution was rushed through Con- 
gress on February 28, 1845, and was signed by 
Tyler on March i, just three days before his 
term of office expired. Thus was the annexation 
of Texas effected, by the setting of a dubious 
precedent in the closing hours of a discredited 
administration. Apart from the setting of that 
precedent for congressional usurpation of what 
is usually regarded as the treaty-making power, 
a precedent afterward followed in the case of 
Hawaii, the chief feature of constitutional interest 
in the Texas annexation act was that it received 
the foreign country directly into statehood in this 
Union, without a preliminary and preparatory period 
in territorial status. Texas is the only state that 
was thus directly admitted to statehood. 

The political effect of the annexation was what 
had been threatened. The Mexican minister at 
once left Washington, severing diplomatic relations 
between the two countries. Texas ratified the act 
of annexation on July 5, 1845, and two days later 
called for United States troops to protect her from 
possible Mexican invasion. Troops were promptly 
sent, but no military operations occurred for some 
time. Indeed, diplomatic relations were resumed 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 179 

between the two countries by the sending of a 
United States envoy to Mexico, and it is to be 
beHeved that war might have been averted, and an 
amicable settlement might have been effected, on 
the basis of making the Nueces River the boundary 
between the United States and Mexico. But with 
such a settlement the aggressive spirit of the 
United States would not be satisfied. The admin- 
istration insisted upon making the Rio Grande the 
boundary, and also upon other concessions which 
Mexico regarded as inadmissible. Therefore a 
United States army was sent across the Nueces 
River, into the disputed territory, and was en- 
camped upon the very bank of the Rio Grande. 
In consequence, on April 22, 1846, the war with 
Mexico began. 

We need not now follow in detail the story of 
that least worthy and least necessary of all the 
wars of the United States. Its outcome was a 
foregone conclusion. The Mexicans made a gal- 
lant resistance, but were overwhelmed and beaten. 
Their territory was invaded, and their national 
capital was seized. At the same time the Mexican 
province of California was also invaded and easily 
conquered. It was conquest, pure and simple ; 
the aggression of a strong nation upon a weak one. 
The triumphant American army dictated a treaty 
of peace, which was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
a suburb of the City of Mexico, on February 2, 
1848. 



l80 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

By this instrument the Rio Grande and Gila 
rivers were made the boundary lines between the 
United States and Mexico at the east and west 
respectively of the Rocky Mountains. The United 
States received Texas, and the territory now com- 
prised in the states of California, Nevada, and 
Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado, and 
the greater parts of Arizona and New Mexico, 
Parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, and New 
Mexico were comprised in Texas, and were after- 
ward ceded by that state to the Union. In return 
for this magnificent domain, the United States paid 
to Mexico the sum of $15,000,000, and assumed 
the debts or indemnities due from Mexico to 
American citizens, amounting to $3,250,000 more. 
In the very month in which that treaty was made, 
gold was discovered in California. 

Meantime, what of Oregon } By that name was 
then understood the entire territory west of the 
Rocky Mountains, north of CaUfornia in latitude 
42°, and south of the Russian possessions in lati- 
tude 54° 40'. Let us briefly review the history of 
that region. The original title, by virtue of dis- 
covery, doubtless rested with Spain. Apart from 
her general claim to the whole western hemisphere, 
her adventurers were the first to visit that coast. 
Cabrillo explored the coast as far north as San 
Francisco in 1542, and the next year Ferrelo 
ascended as far as the forty-third parallel. Others 
at various times went, or were driven by storms, 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION l8l 

as far north as the fifty-seventh parallel, long 
before the first English ship entered Pacific 
waters. That splendid pirate Francis Drake was 
the first Englishman to visit that coast, but how 
far north he went is not precisely known. There- 
after for many years all that part of the world was 
utterly neglected. The next invasion of it was 
made by Russia, and between 1741 and 1770 that 
power explored and took possession of the coast 
as far south as latitude 54° 40', the Spanish title to 
all south of that point being unquestioned. The 
English explorer Captain Cook went thither in 
1778, but merely followed in the wake of Span- 
iards and Russians. French explorers also went 
thither, and, like the others, landed and proclaimed 
possession of the country, but made no permanent 
settlement. 

In the latter part of 1787 Americans first en- 
tered Oregon. Two trading vessels from Boston 
went thither. These historic vessels were the ship 
Coluvibia, Captain John Kendrick, and the sloop 
Washington, Captain Robert Gray. They went 
thither around Cape Horn, laden with " Yankee 
notions," and put into Nootka Sound, at the west 
of Vancouver Island, where they remained until 
the early part of 1789. Then the two captains 
exchanged ships, and set out on further voyages. 
Gray took the Columbia, loaded her with furs, 
sailed to China, exchanged the furs for tea, and 
sailed home to Boston by way of the Cape of Good 



1 82 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Hope, thus for the first time carrying the American 
flag around the world. Meantime, Kendrick, with 
the little WasJiiiigtoii, a sloop of less than a hun- 
dred tons, sailed first of all men through the Strait 
of San Juan de Fuca and explored other coast 
waters. In 1791 Gray returned to that coast in 
the Columbia and discovered the great river which 
still bears the name of his ship, in the face of the 
positive declarations of English explorers that no 
large river existed or could exist in that part of 
the continent. By this discovery, and the explora- 
tion of the river for a considerable distance up 
from the sea, Gray established United States title 
to it and to all lands drained by it. Thereafter, 
down to 18 14, the trade of those regions was almost 
entirely in American hands. 

Meantime, in 1789, Spain and England both at- 
tempted to form settlements on Nootka Sound, with 
little success. A dispute for the sovereignty arose 
between them, ending the next year in a treaty 
giving to England full commercial rights. Five 
years later Spain, without any formal proclamation 
of the fact, quietly withdrew from that part of the 
coast, and established her northern boundary at 
what is now the northern line of California. But 
as she did not renounce ownership of the lands 
above, the nominal sovereignty of them was still 
vested in her. Russia presently followed her down 
the coast, claimed all as far as the mouth of the 
Columbia River, and even planted a trading post 



AGGRESSION AXD CONCESSION 183 

at Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco. The 
vigorous protests of the United States, however, 
and especially John Quincy Adams's foreshadowing 
of the Monroe Doctrine, as already quoted, con- 
strained Russia in 1824 to retire to the north of 
latitude 54° 40', though she held Bodega Bay until 
1836, when the United States compelled her to 
evacuate it. 

It was Russia's expectation in 1824 that the 
United States would take possession of the Pacific 
coast from California up to her line at 54° 40', and 
thus shut Great Britain away from the Pacific alto- 
gether. It was with the latter end in view that in 
1825 she concluded with England the Canning- 
Nesselrode treaty, securing for herself an unbroken 
strip of coast from the Arctic Ocean down to 54° 40', 
in spite of England's desperate efforts to get a gate- 
way through that strip ; and England was the 
more desirous of getting such a gateway because 
she expected the United States would insist upon 
retaining possession of the whole Oregon country 
up to 54° 40'. 

Approaches to Oregon were also made by land. 
An agent of the Hudson Bay Company, a British 
corporation, in 1769- 1772 explored the northwest, 
discovered the Great Slave Lake, and traced the 
Coppermine River to its mouth. Frobisher estab- 
lished an English trading post on Lake Athabasca 
in 1778. Mackenzie, in 1793, crossed for the first 
time the Rocky Mountains and descended to the 



1 84 -4 CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Pacific at latitude 53° 21', thus making the first 
British occupation of Oregon, two years after 
Gray's discovery of the Columbia River. Mac- 
kenzie was, therefore, merely penetrating territory 
already lawfully acquired by the United States. 

Finally, came the famous exploit of Meriwether 
Lewis and William Clark, the latter a brother of 
George Rogers Clark. These young officers were 
sent overland to Oregon by Jefferson, in 1803, as a 
part of his campaign against France for the posses- 
sion of Louisiana. Jefferson's plan was to gain a 
frontage on the Pacific, and to secure territorial 
connection therewith across the continent, north of 
the French holdings in the Mississippi Valley. 
Accordingly Lewis and Clark, with a little com- 
pany of twenty-seven men, amid innumerable 
adventures, hardships, perils, and romantic experi- 
ences, made their way from St. Louis up the 
Missouri River to its headwaters, thence across 
the Rocky Mountains to the headwaters of the 
Columbia, and so down the latter river to the coast. 
This achievement was of great interest to geo- 
graphical science. It was no less important politi- 
cally, for it served notice upon the world that the 
United States meant to extend its dominion across 
the continent from sea to sea. 

A few years later an American citizen, John 
Jacob Astor, made a permanent settlement upon 
the present site of Astoria, Oregon, intending to 
establish a series of trading posts across the conti- 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 85 

nent. Two years later his partners betrayed him 
by dishonestly selling out to the Northwest Com- 
pany, a British concern at Montreal, and in the 
War of 18 1 2 the British took forcible possession 
of the place. Astoria was restored to the United 
States at the end of the war, but the British com- 
pany remained in possession until 1845. Finally, 
by the Florida treaty with Spain, as already related, 
the United States acquired all Spain's right and 
title to all lands north of California. 

So the case stood when the Oregon dispute be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain arose. 
The United States claimed the whole Oregon terri- 
tory up to the Russian line, upon five grounds. 
One was the cession of the Spanish title by the 
Florida treaty. As we have seen, Spain's original 
title to the country was unchallenged. But there 
was a flaw in it, on account of her failure to take 
actual possession of the country and occupy it. 
But even in that respect her title was at least as 
good as England's, for the latter had not made per- 
manent settlement there, and the Nootka treaty 
gave her only commercial rights and no political 
rights or sovereignty. The second ground was 
that of the discovery and exploration of the Colum- 
bia River by a United States citizen. The third 
was the expedition of Lewis and Clark. The 
fourth was the Louisiana Purchase, which gave us 
whatever title France had or might have claimed 
to Oregon. The fifth was the permanent settle- 



1 86 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ment made by Americans at Astoria. These 
grounds seemed to make the American title per- 
fect in law and fact. 

England, however, set up counter-claims to the 
whole region down to California, upon grounds 
which must be regarded as shadowy and altogether 
inadequate. Thus she claimed title to the whole 
Columbia River valley on the ground that some 
part of the upper waters of that river had been 
explored by her subjects, quite ignoring the fact 
that the mouth and lower part of the stream had 
previously been discovered and explored by an 
American, and that it is the discovery of a river's 
mouth, rather than of its headwaters, that gives 
title to it. 

A viodus viveiidi was concluded between the 
two countries in i8i8, in the form of an agreement 
that for the term of ten years all the region should 
be open to the citizens of both countries without 
prejudice to either. At the same time the boun- 
dary between the United States and the British 
territories east of the Rocky Mountains was fixed 
at the forty-ninth parallel. This agreement, it will 
be observed, was prior to our treaty with Spain, by 
which we obtained Spain's title to Oregon and thus 
perfected our ov/n title to that region. This ten 
years' agreement was at its expiration renewed for 
an indefinite period, to be terminated upon a year's 
notice by either party. 

Meantime England found herself shut off by 



AGGRESSION AXD CONCESSION 1 87 

Russia from the sea north of 54° 50' by the treaty 
of 1825, and therefore became the more eager and 
determined to secure an outlet on the Pacific 
through the Oregon territory south of that latitude. 
She made, however, the great mistake of gi\'ing 
the Hudson Bay Company a complete monopoly of 
the region for a game and fur preserve, and not 
only did not encourage but actually forbade coloni- 
zation of it. The United States, on the other 
hand, planted colonies and encouraged settlers to 
go in and occupy the land. Such colonization was 
promoted in a most extraordinary manner. In 
1832 four Flathead Indians visited St. Louis. 
They had come all the way from Oregon, for the 
purpose of purchasing some Bibles and getting in- 
struction in the Christian rehgion. This unique 
errand opened the eyes of the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the desir- 
ability of sending missionaries to that part of the 
world, and a number of missionaries were accord- 
ingly sent. Chief among these were Marcus 
Whitman and H. H. Spaulding — devoted men 
whose names are ever to be held in grateful mem- 
ory. These two men with their wives — it was 
both couples' wedding tour — went in wagons over- 
land to Oregon in 1838. Seldom had there been 
so romantic and adventurous a missionar}^ journey, 
and seldom one with greater results. 

In the track of the missionaries, settlers began 
to pour into the countr)- from the United States, 



1 88 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and it soon became evident that actual possession 
of the land would be in the hands of Americans if 
the English did not bestir themselves. The latter 
awoke to the emergency, and did bestir themselves. 
In 1842 they changed their policy and began hur- 
rying colonists to Oregon, to counterbalance the 
followers of Whitman and Spaulding. In the fall 
of 1842 the British settlers bade fair to outnumber 
the American, and British officers began openly to 
boast that they had secured the whole country 
down to California. It was also known in Oregon 
that a treaty — the Webster- Ashburton Treaty — 
was being negotiated at Washington for the settle- 
ment of the disputes over the northwest boundary 
between the United States and Canada, and it was 
supposed that it would also dispose of Oregon. At 
this Marcus Whitman perceived the need of action. 
The government at Washington must be warned 
of the British settlements in Oregon, and it must 
be informed of the value of that country and of 
the real situation there, in order that it might not, 
because of ignorance, relinquish the American title. 
So in the winter of 1 842-1 843 that devoted and in- 
domitable man made the journey across the conti- 
nent again, intent on saving Oregon for the Union. 
It was a daring, a perilous, and a most memorable 
ride, and its results were of vast importance. Whit- 
man reached Washington too late to influence the 
making of the treaty. That document had been 
completed and had become law before he was half- 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 89 

way across the continent. But happily it appHed 
to nothing west of the Rocky Mountains. He was 
in time to give the government most important in- 
formation, and to exert a beneficent influence upon 
subsequent events. Great Britain had proposed to 
make the Columbia River the boundary line, and 
the United States government seemed inclined to 
agree to it, until Whitman's earnest representations 
dissuaded it from so disastrous a concession. 

Thus the case stood when Calhoun entered 
Tyler's Cabinet in the spring of 1844 for the 
purpose of dealing with the joint questions of 
Texas and Oregon. His attitude toward Oregon 
had already been defined. In 1842 he had op- 
posed a bill providing for the occupation and 
settlement of Oregon, and had urged instead a 
policy of what he called " masterly inactivity." 
That attitude he maintained. Early in 1845 the 
British government proposed to submit the whole 
dispute to impartial arbitration, but Calhoun de- 
chned, on the ground that there was still hope of 
settlement through direct negotiations. The result 
was that the end of Calhoun's administration of 
the State Department found the Oregon question, 
which he had entered that office to settle, no 
nearer a settlement than before. The next admin- 
istration, Polk's, having come into power on the 
issue of " 54.40 or fight ! " was compelled at first 
to make a brave show of living up to its profes- 
sions, though there is grave reason to doubt 



1 90 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

whether it ever really intended to do so. Polk 
declared that the title of the United States to 
Oregon was " clear and unquestionable," as it 
truly was, though Lord John Russell characterized 
the statement as a " blustering announcement." 
An offer of a settlement on the forty-ninth paral- 
lel, the present boundary line, was presently made 
by Polk, but its terms were less favorable to Eng- 
land than that formerly made by her concerning 
the Columbia River, which the United States had 
then seemed inclined to accept, and so England 
not unnaturally declined it. Thereupon Polk 
"withdrew" his offer, with a fine air of heroism, 
after it had been rejected by England, and in his 
next annual message reported to Congress that 
"no compromise which the United States ought 
to accept can be effected." That again was quite 
true, for the reason that the United States ought 
not to have accepted any compromise whatever, 
but should have held out for the whole territory, 
up to the Russian line at 54° 40'. Had it done so, 
it would have acquired that region, and that too, 
without the war which Cass, speaking with presi- 
dential inspiration in the Senate in December, 1845, 
declared to be "almost upon us." With Cass's 
rabid Anglophobia, it may be that the wish was 
father to the thought. Cass moved, also, for giv- 
ing to Great Britain the prescribed year's notice of 
our intention to abrogate the modus vivendi, 3. step 
which Polk had suggested in his message. Such 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 191 

notice was in entire accord with the terms of the 
treaty of August, 1827, and was not in itself offen- 
sive. In the preamble to the resolution it was 
described as " an incentive to a speedy and amica- 
ble adjustment." It was such an incentive, inas- 
much as it was practically notice that something 
must be done within the year or there would be 
trouble. The resolution was adopted on April 
27, 1848, and the formal notice of abrogation was 
given to the British government by Polk on May 
21 following, the time of doing so having been left 
to the President's discretion. 

This abrogation of the jiiodns vivciidi, or notice 
that it was to be abrogated at the end of a year, 
gave no offence to Great Britain. On the con- 
trary, it was welcomed as an indication that the 
United States was beginning to yield and would 
presently abandon the " 54.40 or fight ! " attitude. 
Indeed, Polk had already hinted at a compromise, 
fixing the line at the forty-ninth parallel, uniformly 
with that at the east of the Rocky Mountains, and 
thus surrendering to Great Britain nearly one-half 
of the Oregon territory. But the British govern- 
ment declined this offer, being intent upon getting 
the whole region down to California, or at any rate 
down to the Columbia River, including the north 
bank of that stream. Such abandonment by Polk 
of what he had described as a " clear and unques- 
tionable " title, Calhoun declared, in a Senate reso- 
lution, did not " abandon the honor, the character, 



192 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

or the best interests of the American people." No, 
it merely abandoned some of their territory. War 
with England, argued Calhoun, would result in the 
loss of the whole region, while " masterly inac- 
tivity " would secure the whole of it for us. It is 
not at all sure, but indeed very doubtful, that insist- 
ence upon our "clear and unquestionable" title to 
the whole of Oregon would have led to war. It is 
no more sure, but fully as doubtful, that such war, 
had it come, would have lost us all. It might more 
probably have gained us all. It is a fact of his- 
tory that Calhoun's " masterly inactivity " did not 
gain us all, but on the contrary lost us all north of 
the forty-ninth parallel. 

The question has been much debated whether 
Calhoun favored this compromise because he 
really feared war with England and wished to 
avoid it, or because he wished to gain as little 
territory as he decently could for the free states 
of the North. We can scarcely doubt that if the 
territory in question had been in the slave zone he 
would have stood out for the whole of it to the 
crack of doom. Of course, there was a great dif- 
ference between a war with England and a war 
with Mexico. But so, too, was there a great dif- 
ference between a war to maintain a " clear and 
unquestionable " title and one to maintain no title 
at all but to grab outright land to which we never 
pretended to have a title. Benton, in a masterly 
speech in the Senate against the spoliation of 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 93 

Mexico, caustically demanded : " Why not march 
up to 54.40 as courageously as we march upon 
the Rio Grande ? Because Great Britain is strong 
and Mexico is weak." He might have added that 
we were more ready to make unjust aggressions 
upon a weak power than we were to defend our- 
selves righteously against a strong one. 

There was little danger of war with Great 
Britain. There was no very great danger of our 
getting worsted in such a war, had it come. Yet 
undoubtedly war with England would have been a 
serious matter. It would have borne particularly 
hardly upon the South, and might have imperilled 
the existence of slavery. The real explanation of 
the case probably is that Calhoun and Polk did not 
want war with either England or Mexico, but if 
they had to choose between war with either they 
would unhesitatingly elect to fight Mexico, partly 
because she was the weaker, and partly, perhaps 
chiefly, because what was to be got from her was, 
in their eyes, more valuable than what was to be 
got or held through fighting England. They 
strove to avoid war with either, knowing that if 
they became involved in a war with one, the hands 
of the other would thus be enormously strength- 
ened against them. If they went to war with 
England, Mexico would become defiant and would 
retake Texas. If they began fighting Mexico, 
England would take the whole of Oregon. But 
in the last analysis, if either Oregon or Texas and 



194 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

New Mexico must be sacrificed, they unhesitat- 
ingly preferred that it should be Oregon. In the 
end, therefore, Calhoun urged the compromise on 
Oregon, knowing that thus the United States 
would be enabled to do as it pleased in Texas and 
Mexico, and probably hoping that Mexico, seeing 
the hands of the United States thus freed in the 
North, would be frightened into submission, and 
war even with her would thus be avoided. Polk, 
on his part, hesitated in his aggressions upon 
Mexico only until he could get the Oregon ques- 
tion out of the way. With all fear of war with 
England removed, he could be as resolute and 
valiant — that is to say, as domineering — as he 
pleased toward Mexico. 

Accordingly Polk went on with his sacrifice of 
Oregon. The British government was quite ready 
to meet him halfway. It is true that it had pre- 
tended to claim the whole country down to the 
California line. It is equally true that it realized 
the invalidity of its title to any of it, even to a 
single foot of Pacific coast. If, therefore, it could 
get the northern half of what did not belong to it, 
it would be gaining a great deal. So it facilitated 
Polk's surrender by proposing a reconsideration 
of the very offer which it had formerly rejected, 
namely, to run the boundary along the forty-ninth 
parallel. Polk eagerly accepted the overture. A 
treaty was prepared to that effect, continuing the 
boundary along the forty-ninth parallel west of the 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 95 

mountains to the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, 
and thence along that strait so as to give to 
England the whole of Vancouver Island. This 
was a monstrous betrayal and desertion of the 
issue on which Polk had been elected, and a flat 
repudiation of the position which his party had 
aggressively assumed. But the brave boast of 
" 54.40 or fight ! " had served its purjoose. It 
had been " a good enough Morgan until after 
election." Now the election was over, and Polk 
was President. Why should he hesitate to kick 
down the ladder upon which he had climbed from 
obscurity into the White House ^ 

The moral treason was, however, so flagrant 
that even Polk hesitated to assume full responsi- 
bility for it. Instead, therefore, of following the 
otherwise almost invariable custom of signing the 
treaty and then sending it to the Senate for ratifi- 
cation, he first sent it to the Senate with a request 
for its advice as to whether he should sign it or 
not. Practically, he wanted to know in advance 
whether, if he signed the treaty, the Senate would 
stand by him and ratify it. The Senate, blinded 
with visions of Mexican conquests, did advise him 
to sign it, and he did so. Ratifications were ex- 
changed, and on August 5, 1846, the treaty was 
proclaimed and put into force, and the once re- 
sounding campaign cry of " 54.40 or fight ! " 
remained only as the memory of a great betrayal. 

The sacrifice of northern Oregon did not, how- 



196 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ever, enable the United States to avoid war with 
Mexico. We have said that Polk and his followers 
did not want war. They merely wanted something 
that could not be obtained without war. So the 
Mexican War promptly came on. We need not 
review its course. The United States was easily 
victorious. But in the results of that war were 
several pieces of the bitterest irony ever conceived 
by a remorseless Nemesis, which must have ran- 
kled until death in the souls of those who engi- 
neered the unhallowed enterprise. One was that 
in securing so large a part of Mexico we also 
acquired another boundary dispute. The maps 
used in making the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 
were inaccurate and there soon afterward arose 
a dispute as to the ov/nership of the Masilla Valley, 
lying south of the Gila River. The United States 
coveted this region, supposing it to be rich in 
precious minerals and to be invaluable as the 
path of a railroad from the Atlantic coast to 
southern California, and so, through a treaty ne- 
gotiated by James Gadsden of South Carolina, in 
December, 1853, it purchased it from Mexico for 
the sum of $10,000,000 — an enormous sum for a 
small bit of territory, in proportion to what was 
paid for other acquisitions. Perhaps we may re- 
gard it as the unconscious paying of " conscience 
money" to Mexico for the wrong we had done her 
a few years before. 

Again, it had been expected, as we have already 



AGGRESSION AND CONCESSION 1 97 

said, that Texas would be divided into five states, 
with ten senators at Washington, and that New 
Mexico and the southern part of CaUfornia would 
be erected into states, each with two senators, thus 
increasing by fourteen the slave strength in the 
Senate. But Texas remained, and remains to 
this day, a single state, with only two senators. 
New Mexico remained, and remains to this day, 
a territory without a single vote in Congress. 
And the whole of California quickly came into 
the Union as a free state ! Never was engineer 
more disastrously hoist with his own petard than 
were the pro-slavery expansionists. At every point 
the conspiracy for the extension of slave statehood, 
though conducted at the cost of a war and of 
national honor, egregiously failed. Nor was that 
all. Calhoun, speaking on the Mexican War, in 
the Senate on February 24, 1847, with the pre- 
science of a seer, truly said, " It has closed the 
first volume of our political history under the Con- 
stitution, and opened the second." It had, more 
than all other proceedings before it, led to the rise 
of sectionalism in national policies, an ominous 
thing that was to be got rid of only at the price 
of another and incomparably more costly war. 

We have already described the general area 
acquired by the United States as the fruits of its 
criminal aggression upon Mexico. The outcome 
of its scarcely less criminal concession in the 
northwest was that it had to be content with pos- 



198 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

session of the present states of Oregon and Wash- 
ington and parts of Wyoming and Montana, instead 
of holding also a large part of what is now British 
Columbia. Thus the present continental domain 
of the United States was completed and its boun- 
daries were fixed, as they have since remained for 
just half a century and as they bid fair to remain 
for immeasurable time to come. The Mexican- 
Oregon chapter in our history cannot be regarded 
with pride or pleasure. It is true that great good 
has followed as its sequel. But when an over- 
ruling Providence brings good out of evil, the evil 
remains none the less evil still. Let it be unhesi- 
tatingly granted that it is well, for us and for the 
world, that we possess both Texas and California. 
Let it be granted that it was our " manifest des- 
tiny " to acquire them. The fact remains that 
they might have been acquired peaceably and 
honorably instead of violently and dishonorably. 



CHAPTER VII 

"our arctic province" 

The story of Alaska suggests a curious appli- 
cation of the principle that " the first shall be 
last." Russia was the first European power to 
which what we may call the American riot act 
was read. Russian aggressions, or the direct 
menace of them, caused the first formal enuncia- 
tion of the fundamental principle of the Monroe 
Doctrine, made, as we have already seen, by John 
Quincy Adams to the Russian minister months 
before Monroe issued his famous message. The 
Monroe Doctrine itself was directed against Russia 
more than any other power, since the " Holy 
Alliance " was a thing chiefly of Russian devis- 
ing, and it was the Russian government that 
was most eager to undertake the work of sup- 
pressing, or undoing, the revolution in South and 
Central America and of restoring those countries 
to Spanish or other European and monarchical 
control ; a step which, had it been accomplished, 
would almost certainly have led Russia and her 
reactionary allies to attempt the conquest of the 

199 



2CX3 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

United States and its subjection to European 
despotism. Russia also, it will be recalled, arbi- 
trarily invaded California and established settle- 
ments on its coast, from which she had to be 
expelled by the United States under threat of 
force. Yet this same Russia, strangely enough, 
lingered upon this continent long after the de- 
parture of France and Spain, and finally left it 
at her own volition, and was succeeded by the 
United States only through a bit of chance, and 
partly as an unexpected result of our abandon- 
ment of northern Oregon. 

We may safely accord to Russia full original 
title to Alaska, by virtue of discovery, conquest, 
and occupation. It was a Russian agent, Vitus 
Bering, who, under the Russian flag, in 1741 set 
out from Kamchatka on a voyage of discovery, 
and Hkewise of indescribable peril, hardship, and 
tragedy. It was a Russian, Michael Novidiskov, 
who, in 1745, first of all white men landed on 
Attoo Island, the extreme end of the Aleutian 
chain now belonging to our territory of Alaska. 
It was the Russian fur-hunters who, for a century 
thereafter, tortured and slaughtered the helpless 
natives of Alaska with a savagery unsurpassed 
elsewhere in the history of conquest. By the 
end of. the eighteenth century no fewer than 
sixty Russian companies were settled and were 
operating in northwestern America, almost ex- 
clusively engaged in the fur trade. All these 



''OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE" 201 

were in 1799 united in one great concern, known 
as the Russian American Company, which en- 
deavored to possess for Russia the whole Ameri- 
can coast from just north of San Francisco to 
the Arctic Sea, and to make the whole North 
Pacific Ocean a Russian lake, barred against the 
commerce of all other nations. 

Under the administration of Alexander Baranoff, 
its first head, this company enjoyed vast prosperity, 
and bade fair to estabhsh permanently an exten- 
sive Muscovite empire in North America. The 
headquarters of the company were at Irkutsk, 
in Siberia, but Baranoff conducted his governor- 
ship at Sitka, on one of the coast islands of 
Alaska. There he exercised powers similar to 
those of the great British chartered companies, 
in India, South Africa, and elsewhere. He had 
full governmental control of the country in civil 
and military affairs. He established courts, such 
as they were, and maintained an army and navy. 
Under his wise administration the company had 
a princely revenue, and in addition to making its 
own members rich it paid yearly a splendid sum 
into the imperial treasury. But in 18 18, stricken 
with age and illness, Baranoff retired from the 
governorship, and the decline of Russian America 
began. After him came a succession of governors 
who were at once luxurious in tastes, cruel in 
practice, and fatally lacking in business capacity. 
The headquarters at Sitka were elaborated into 



202 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

a veritable vice-regal court, with the splendors, 
the profligacy, and the debaucheries of St. Peters- 
burg itself, while the business of the company- 
was permitted to fall into neglect and ruin. Divi- 
dends decreased. The tribute to the imperial 
treasury became a minus quantity. Presently 
the company began to make demands upon the 
Russian government, for subsidies, for main- 
tenance and protection, and for payment of the 
debts which the incompetent and profligate ad- 
ministrators had incurred. 

The Russian dream of conquest also vanished. 
The Lewis and Clark exjDedition, the discoveries 
of Kendrick and Gray, and various other Ameri- 
can movements, signified plainly the intention of 
the United States to occupy a part of the Oregon 
coast and to become a power in the North Pacific. 
In July, 1823, as we have already seen, John 
Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, warned the 
Russian government, through its minister. Baron 
Tuyl, that the United States would " contest the 
right of Russia to any territorial establishment 
on this continent," and a few months later in the 
same year the Monroe Doctrine was put forth, 
directed primarily against Russia. The challenge 
was one which the autocratic and republic-hating 
Muscovite dared not accept. Instead, safety was 
sought in compromise and concession. Russia 
hastened, after Adams's vigorous words, to make 
a treaty with the United States, in which most 



"OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE" 203 

of her extraordinary pretensions were abandoned. 
Its first article conceded to the United States the 
full freedom of the sea in the Pacific Ocean. The 
second admitted that the United States owned a 
stretch of Pacific coast, upon which Russians 
might not land without permission. The third 
restricted Russian settlements to the regions 
north of latitude 54° 40', and gave the United 
States, so far as Russia was concerned, full title 
to all lands south thereof. This treaty was con- 
cluded on April 17, 1824. 

Thus forced to relinquish her arrogant scheme 
of monopoly in the northwest, Russia strove at 
least to admit to that region no other rival than 
the United States. Especially did she strive to 
shut England away from the Pacific. The latter 
power had made numerous landings on the Oregon 
coast, and was vigorously pushing across the con- 
tinent with her Hudson Bay Fur Company, and 
was determined in some way to secure a frontage 
on the Pacific. From 1822 to 1825 she conducted 
earnest negotiations with Russia upon the subject, 
aiming both to get title to a strip of Pacific coast 
and to compel Russia to renounce her claims to 
sole sovereignty in the North Pacific. The Rus- 
sian negotiators were the same as those who made 
the treaty of 1824 with the United States, Count 
Nesselrode and M. de Poletica, and the English 
were Sir Charles Bagot and Lord Stratford de 
Redcliffe, cousin of the great statesman who then 



204 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

directed the foreign policy of England, George 
Canning. 

Fearing that the United States would insist 
upon retaining possession of the whole coast up to 
54° 40', and realizing the validity of the United 
States title thereto, the British strove desperately 
to gain access to the sea north of that line. At 
first they wanted to draw the Anglo-Russian 
boundary down the 141st meridian straight to the 
sea at Mount St. Elias, thus depriving Russia of 
the " pan-handle " altogether. This, which would 
have required Russia to relinquish Sitka itself, was 
however not even seriously considered. Next the 
British proposed Christian Sound, Chatham Strait, 
and Lynn Canal as the boundary. Russia refused 
it. Next, a line through Clarence Strait to the 
Stickeen River was urged. That, too, was refused. 
Then, as a last resort, the British conceded the 
whole coast to Russia, down to 54° 40', but asked 
that the coast-Hne be drawn straight across such 
arms of the sea as Lynn Canal and Glacier Bay, 
from headland to headland, so as to give her the 
upper parts of those waters and thus access to the 
sea. This also Russia inexorably refused, insisting 
that the line should be drawn " parallel with the 
coast and with the windings thereof," thus circling 
around the heads of those inlets and absolutely 
shutting England away from access to tidewater 
north of Chatham Sound and Portland Canal. 

In the end Russia won. Nearly a year after the 



''OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE'' 205 

signing of the Russo-American treaty of 1824, to 
wit, in February, 1825, a treaty was concluded be- 
tween Russia and England, in which the whole 
coast down to 54° 40' was conceded to Russia, and 
England was entirely shut away from the sea, save 
through Russian permission. At the same time, 
Russia again relinquished in favor of England, as 
she had already done in favor of the United States, 
her preposterous and untenable claims of monopoly 
in the North Pacific. Canning afterward declared 
that to gain this concession from Russia was the 
real object of the negotiations, the demand for a 
part of the Alaskan coast having been put forward 
merely as a stalking-horse. However that may 
be, it was from that time forward that England 
became most determined to wrest a part of Oregon 
away from the United States, so as thus to gain 
the Pacific frontage she had failed to get from 
Russia. It is also of interest and importance to 
bear in mind the story of those Anglo-Russian 
negotiations and their result, in view of the efforts 
of England, at Canadian urging, three-quarters of 
a century later, to reopen the case and to secure 
from the United States that which she failed to get 
from Russia in 1825. 

Three things chiefly caused Russia in time to 
grow weary of her American province and to 
desire to get rid of it. The first was the treaty of 
1824, by which she was compelled to let the United 
States in as a maritime power in the North Pacific 



206 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

and thus to relinquish her own monopoly there. 
The second was the Anglo-American treaty of 
1846, by which the United States relinquished the 
northern part of Oregon to Great Britain, and thus 
let the latter in also as a North Pacific power, to 
Russia's ineffable disgust. The third was the 
gross mismanagement of the Alaska company by 
worthless governors, by which the province was 
made a source of expense instead of profit. Such 
was the state of affairs in 1864, when the third 
term of the Russian American Company's charter 
expired and application was made for its renewal. 
At the same time application was made for a grant 
from the imperial treasury to pay the company's 
debts. That latter was the proverbial last straw 
which broke the back of the camel of Muscovite 
patience. Against the demand for a grant the Rus- 
sian government revolted. Indeed, it could scarcely 
have done otherwise. It had recently passed 
through a costly and disastrous war, and was in no 
condition and no humor to subsidize an unprofit- 
able and bankrupt concern for the sake of main- 
taining provincial functionaries in profligate revels. 
It therefore flatly refused to renew the charter, 
and instead sent commissioners to Alaska, to wind 
up the whole business on the best possible terms. 
It was soon decided that the best thing to be 
done was to get rid of Alaska altogether. Russia 
had never colonized it, and she realized that it 
would be folly to attempt so to do with so much of 



''OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE'' 20/ 

Asia still unconquered and unoccupied between 
her and America. Had she at that time been in 
her present condition, possessing Central Asia, 
with Siberia colonized, with a railroad across the 
Asian continent, and with the northern part of 
China under her sway, she might have held on to 
Alaska. But these achievements were still far in 
the future. Her duty at the time seemed to be to 
concentrate her energies upon the regions lying 
close at hand. So she decided to dispose of 
Alaska if she could. 

There was little doubt as to who the purchaser 
must be. The only possible ones were England 
and the United States. But England was scarcely 
to be regarded as a possible purchaser. For one 
thing, Russian animosity against her was too great 
to permit Russia to seek such negotiations with 
her. For another thing, it was exceedingly doubt- 
ful if the United States would assent to a transfer 
of sovereignty from Russia to England. It had 
long been a well-estabhshed principle of American 
policy that while a European power might continue 
to hold a colony undisturbed upon this continent, 
it could not be permitted to sell or cede it to 
another European power. If it relinquished it, 
the colony must pass under American dominion, 
or become an independent state. That principle 
had been hinted at in Louisiana. It had been 
openly proclaimed and acted upon in Florida, and 
for many years had been maintained in Cuba and 



208 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Porto Rico. There was reason to suppose that it 
would be insisted upon in the case of Alaska, even 
against so great powers as Russia and England. 

Accordingly, Russia turned to the United States. , 
This country, despite Adams's strenuous warning 
in 1823, had never attempted to drive Russia out 
of Alaska, though it had compelled her to retire 
thither from her usurped position on the California 
coast. It had regarded Russian possession of that 
remote and inhospitable region with complacency 
if not with indifference. In 1858, indeed, Senator 
Gwin of California had informally suggested to the 
Russian minister at Washington that the United 
States might be willing to pay $5,000,000 for 
Alaska, and it was also intimated that the Presi- 
dent, Buchanan, was favorably inclined toward a 
purchase if terms could be arranged. The Rus- 
sian government, on being informed by its minis- 
ter of these overtures, replied that the sum named 
was far too small, and the matter was dropped. 

American interest in the region continued to 
grow, however, and in 1865 the Western Union 
Telegraph Company entered into negotiations with 
the Russian government for the building of a tele- 
graph line overland from the United States to 
Europe by way of Alaska and Siberia. Surveying 
parties were sent to Alaska, and on January i, 
1887, the first telegraph pole was erected with 
jubilant ceremonies. But after $3,000,000 had 
been expended upon it, the undertaking was aban- 



"OUR ARC TIC PR VINCE " 2 09 

doned, on the ground that it would be impossible 
to send despatches over such a line as cheaply 
as over the Atlantic cable. Meantime, another 
American company entered the Alaskan field. 
This was the so-called American Russian Ice Com- 
pany, composed chiefly of San Francisco capital- 
ists. It had been organized to import ice from 
Alaska to California, though in fact it had done 
little such work, and had scarcely more than 
nominal existence. But its shrewd and energetic 
directors recognized the vast possibilities of profit 
in Alaska, not from ice but from numerous other 
sources, and they made haste to offer to the Rus- 
sian commissioners for the charter of the moribund 
Russian American Company a sum far greater 
than the latter, even in the palmy days of Baranoff, 
had ever paid to the St. Petersburg treasury. The 
Russians were favorably impressed with the offer. 
Senator Cole of California interested himself in 
the promotion of the scheme, and there seemed 
every prospect of its success. 

But just as these negotiations were apparently 
at the point of conclusion, a new and powerful 
factor entered into the case. This was the United 
States government, in the person of WilHam 
Henry Seward, its Secretary of State. He was a 
statesman of broad and penetrating vision, and of 
bold ideas concerning the destiny of America ; a 
fitting successor to Jay, Hamilton, Jefferson, 
Adams, and the others who had promoted the 



210 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

growth of the American empire. Learning what 
was afoot at San Francisco and at Sitka, he 
looked carefully into the matter, and quickly de- 
cided upon a line of action. 

In this he was moved by various considerations. 
One was, that the doctrine enunciated by Adams 
and Monroe and their contemporaries concerning 
Florida, Cuba, and other lands should be enforced 
in the case of Alaska, to wit, that it should not be 
transferred to any other foreign power, but if re- 
hnquished by Russia should come to the United 
States, this country having, in his opinion, a rever- 
sionary title to all parts of the North American 
continent. Now, he argued, was an opportune 
time to make that doctrine effective and to avoid 
all danger of future complications. Russia was 
willing to sell. If the United States did not buy, 
it would thus discredit itself in any attempt to 
prevent Russia from some day selling to some one 
else. This country could not play the part of a 
dog in a manger. For the sake of vindicating the 
Monroe Doctrine, then, it was expedient to acquire 
Alaska. A second consideration was that he be- 
lieved Russia to have been a sincere and valuable 
friend to the United States during the Civil War 
which had just ended, and he was therefore in- 
clined on the ground of gratitude to oblige Russia 
by taking off her hands that which she was de- 
sirous of selling. A third was that he distrusted 
England, and resented the part her government 



" UR AR C riC PR VINCE " 211 

of the day had played during our Civil War, and 
he therefore was desirous of preventing her from 
ever acquiring any more territory on this continent. 
It had not escaped his notice that British overtures 
for the acquisition of Alaska had just been made, 
through the Hudson Bay Company, and though 
they were unsuccessful, there was no telling what 
a renewal of them might not effect if the United 
States declined to profit by this chance. Still an- 
other consideration was that Alaska was likely to 
prove a valuable and profitable possession. He 
knew it had once been very profitable to Russia, 
and had become unprofitable only because of gross 
mismanagement. He felt sure that under enlight- 
ened and progressive management it would become 
more profitable than ever. Certainly, if a private 
corporation could pay a large royalty to Russia for 
the privilege of exploiting it, that royalty might as 
well be paid to the American as to the Russian 
government. 

In February, 1867, the Russian minister at 
Washington was authorized to treat for the sale of 
Alaska to the United States. On March 22 Mr. 
Seward offered him for that territory the sum of 
$7,200,000, the territory to be ceded to the United 
States entirely free from all encumbrances of debts 
or concessions of any kind. Two days later the 
Russian minister replied that he believed the offer 
would prove acceptable to the Russian govern- 
ment. On March 29 a definite acceptance of the 



212 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

offer was received by cable from St. Petersburg, 
and at four o'clock the following morning the 
treaty of cession was signed. Seldom in the his- 
tory of the world has so great a transaction been 
so simply and expeditiously accomplished. The 
treaty was ratified on May 28, and was formally 
proclaimed on June 20, and on October 18, 1867, 
in the presence of Russian and American officers, 
the Russian flag at Sitka was hauled down, the 
American flag was raised in its place, salutes were 
fired, and the actual transfer of sovereignty was 
effected. It may be added that as in the case of 
Florida, the whole of the purchase money was 
used for the payment of debts and claims against 
the territory, so that none of it reached the Rus- 
sian treasury. Practically, the United States 
simply took Alaska off Russia's hands and its' 
encumbrances with it. 

The motives which impelled the United States 
to acquire Alaska were formally set forth by Con- 
gress, just before the ratification of the treaty. 
They coincide largely with some of those which 
we have already ascribed to Mr. Seward. " They 
were," said Congress, " first, the laudable desire of 
citizens of the Pacific coast to share in the prolific 
fisheries of the oceans, seas, bays, and rivers of the 
western world ; the refusal of Russia to renew the 
charter of the Russian American Fur Company in 
1866; the friendship of Russia for the United 
States ; the necessity of preventing the transfer. 



'' OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE'' 213 

by any possible chance, of the northwest coast of 
America to an unfriendly power; the creation of 
new industrial interests on the Pacific necessary 
to the supremacy of our empire on the sea and 
land; and finally, to facilitate and secure the ad- 
vantages of an unlimited American commerce with 
the friendly powers of Japan and China." The 
last-mentioned motive was sincere, but quite mis- 
taken. Alaska has been of no value whatever to 
us as an aid to commerce with Japan and China. 
The others were valid, and have been vindicated by 
the course of subsequent events. 

The purchase of Alaska did not involve grave 
constitutional questions such as did that of Louisi- 
ana, partly because such questions as might have 
arisen had been settled before in the cases of 
Louisiana and Florida, and partly because it was 
not proposed to admit Alaska as a state, and 
questions connected with statehood were thus 
altogether avoided. Practically the only question 
raised was that of the right of the President and 
Senate to negotiate and ratify a treaty involving 
the payment of money without the cooperation of 
the House of Representatives, without whose vote 
this money could not be appropriated and paid. 
It was not the first time, however, that that ques- 
tion had been raised, and it was not the last. But 
in that case, as in others of the same kind, the 
question was susceptible of ready solution. The 
President and Senate had the right to make the 



214 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

treaty, but the treaty could not become operative 
until Congress had enacted the necessary enabling 
legislation. That feature of the case was per- 
fectly well understood by the Russian govern- 
ment, as by our own. The treaty-making power 
could not compel nor bind Congress to make an 
appropriation, any more than Congress could 
compel the treaty-making power to negotiate a 
treaty. But the treaty-making power could make 
the treaty, and it would be morally binding, 
though not practically effective until Congress 
had supplied the means of executing it. 

Two provisions only of the treaty of cession 
need briefly to be considered here. One is con- 
tained in the first article, and is to the effect that 
the boundaries of the ceded territory shall be the 
same as those agreed upon by Russia and England 
in the Canning-Nesselrode treaty of 1825. The 
United States thus acquired from Russia an 
unquestionable title to an unbroken strip of coast 
down to latitude 54° 40', — a strip not broken by 
intruding arms of the sea but curving inland 
around those arms. The latter attempts of Great 
Britain, at Canada's incitement, to break through 
that strip and get to tidewater above 54° 40', have 
therefore really been attempts to reopen the 
settlement made by herself and Russia in 1825. 

The other notable provision is found in the 
third article of the treaty, and is to the effect that 
" the inhabitants of the ceded territory, according 



''OUR ARC TIC PR VINCE " 2 1 5 

to their choice, reserving their natural allegiance, 
may return to Russia within three years ; but, if 
they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory, 
they, with the exception of uncivilized native 
tribes, shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all 
the right, advantages, and immunities of citizens 
of the United States, and shall be maintained and 
protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, 
property, and religion." There is not a word 
about admission to statehood, and indeed it was 
tacitly understood that there was no intention of 
ever making a state of Alaska. So here was set 
the precedent, without controversy, of acquiring 
territory not to be incorporated into the Union but 
to be held indefinitely and probably perpetually 
outside of the Union, as a subordinate and subject 
province or colony. The treaty contained no 
promise that the Constitution of the United States 
should never be extended to Alaska, but rather 
intimated that it would not be, and certainly that 
it would not be at once. As a matter of fact, 
the Constitution has not yet, to this day, been 
extended to Alaska. Indeed, Alaska has never 
yet become an organized territory of the United 
States. 

Mr. Seward was at first somewhat at a loss to 
define the legal basis for the acquisition and con- 
trol of the country, but at last found his authority 
in a law enacted in 1834 for an entirely different 
purpose and without the slightest reference to 



2l6 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Alaska. That law described the " Indian coun- 
try "as a " part of the United States west of the 
Mississippi." That, said Seward, with " happy 
elasticity," included Alaska! Thus Alaska was 
lumped with the "Indian Territory" as an unorgan- 
ized territory, and for years had no regular system 
of government beyond military and customs con- 
trol. At last, in 1884, a law was enacted providing 
for a civil government. Alaska was erected into 
a civil and judicial district, ruled by a governor 
appointed by the President. But it was to have 
no legislature, and no delegate to Congress, and 
practically no measure of self-government. The 
mining laws and some other United States statutes 
were to be extended to it, but by no means all of 
them. And in such condition Alaska remains to 
this day. Its government is radically different 
from that of the territories of the United States, 
and all the provisions of the United States Consti- 
tution are not in force there. Thus was and is 
emphasized the right and power of the nation to 
govern each separate territory as it pleases and to 
do so independently of the constitutional restric- 
tions which inflexibly apply to the states. 

It is worthy of note, as one of the ironies of 
fate, that while this was the first territory acquired, 
the boundaries of which were definitely prescribed 
in the treaty of cession, there have arisen disputes 
over those boundaries which have been longer 
continued than any over those of the undefined 



''OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE'' 21/ 

territories formerly annexed. The United States 
also acquired with Alaska a legacy of controversy 
over maritime and other rights which has proved 
most troublesome. We have already spoken of 
Russia's pretension of sovereignty over the Pacific 
Ocean. After she was forced to abandon that, she 
still clung tenaciously and defiantly to the pretence 
that Bering Sea was a closed sea, mare clausinn, 
and a part of her own territorial waters, which no 
other nation could navigate or enter without her 
permission. This pretension was disputed by 
Great Britain and also by the United States, but 
was at least nominally maintained by Russia down 
to the date of the cession of Alaska to the United 
States. Then, by the treaty of cession, Russia 
conveyed that claim of sovereignty over Bering 
Sea to the United States. The treaty defined the 
boundaries of the ceded territory with much mi- 
nuteness. At the west the line began practically 
at the north pole — " due north, without limita- 
tion " — and ran down through Bering Strait, 
thence southwest so as to go west of Attoo 
Island, and then turned eastward south of the 
Aleutian Archipelago. Thus it included the 
eastern half of Bering Sea. 

For a time and for certain purposes the United 
States undertook to maintain title to sovereignty 
over those waters. It also undertook to maintain 
title to ownership of the fur seals which frequented 
the Pribyloff Islands wherever they might be. 



2l8 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION- 

Those islands were and are a part of the Alaskan 
territory and thus unquestionably the property of 
the United States. So are the seals the property 
of the United States when they are upon those 
islands or within the lawful Hmits of their coast 
waters. But the United States claimed that the 
seals remained its property even when, in their 
yearly migration, they were swimming in the high 
seas hundreds of miles away. These pretensions, 
inherited from Russia and fatuously insisted upon, 
involved the United States in long and acrimonious 
controversies with Great Britain, in the course of 
which the United States seized and confiscated 
various British vessels which had been engaged in 
the taking of seals upon the high seas. The whole 
case was finally referred to arbitration at Paris in 
1883, and was, of course, reasonably and rightfully 
decided against the United States on the two 
major points named. That is to say, the claims 
of the United States to sovereignty over Bering 
Sea, and to ownership of the seals on the high seas, 
were denied, and the United States was adjudged 
liable for indemnity for the seizures of British 
sealers — which indemnity this country paid to the 
amount of several hundred thousand dollars. At 
the same time the necessity of regulating pelagic 
sealing was recognized, and a code of rules therefor 
was formulated. 

The annexation of Alaska brought to the United 
States, however, much more than controversies. 



" UR AR CTIC PR O VINCE " 2 1 9 

It is doubtful if any other acquisition of territory- 
was ever the subject of so much ridicule and scorn. 
Seward was said to have " annexed an iceberg," 
and " our Arctic province " was the most favorable 
appellation given to the new possession. Yet 
time has splendidly vindicated the wisdom of 
Seward's act and has abundantly demonstrated 
the value of Alaska, far beyond even Seward's 
most sanguine expectations. The cession added 
some 512,000 square miles of land to our domain. 
It brought to Americans more than $2,500,000 
worth of seal furs yearly, beside vast values in 
other furs, in salmon and other fishes, in timber, 
in coal, and in copper, silver, and gold. It is a 
safe estimate that for many years the yearly prod- 
uct of Alaska has been far more than the entire 
purchase price paid for that territory. The North 
American Commercial Company, which under a 
government charter has had a monopoly of the 
fur-seal business, has paid in royalties more than 
$300,000 a year, and it alone has thus paid back 
to the United States more than the cost of Alaska. 
The salmon and other fisheries of the Alaskan 
coast are among the richest in the world. The 
forest wealth of Alaska is simply inestimable. 
The deposits of coal and copper are known to be 
of great extent and value. The gold mines of 
Douglass Island, of the Cape Nome region, and 
of the Yukon country adjoining the British Klon- 
dike, have already yielded fortunes. Moreover, it 



220 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

is now perceived that the soil and climate of the 
southern part of Alaska fit that country admirably 
for agricultural pursuits and for occupation by a 
large population engaged in varied and profitable 
industries. The territory is not, of course, com- 
parable in value with the other great accessions 
previously made by the United States. But it is 
not unworthy to be named after them, and both in 
its intrinsic value and in the circumstances and 
manner of its acquisition, it may well be regarded 
with satisfaction and with a measure of honest and 
honorable pride. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 

The acquisition of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, 
California, and Oregon completed the continental 
domain of the United States. It was a coherent 
and compact domain, every portion of which might 
in due time aspire to statehood in the Union. It 
was, moreover, freed from contact with or proxim- 
ity to alien powers, save two. One of these, at 
the south, was a sister Republic, and, therefore, in 
sympathy with our system of government, and 
was not great enough to offer us any menace even 
had it been so disposed. The other, at the north, 
v/as the very power from which we had ourselves 
sprung, with which our interests and our destiny 
had from the beginning been intimately associated, 
and which, despite two wars and innumerable con- 
troversies, was our truest friend among the nations 
of Europe. There was no longer any danger of 
molestation in the development of our institutions 
and the working out of our national problems. 
The independence which the early colonists had 
sought was at last attained. The first step outside 



222 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

of that domain of actual and potential states was 
taken in the annexation of Alaska. That was the 
first acquisition of territory not contiguous to the 
United States and not intended to be incorporated 
into the Union. Still, Alaska was a part of the 
North American continent. It was reserved for 
the next step in the process of expansion to extend 
to a territory which was not only non-contiguous 
but also non-continental — -an insular territory 
remotely separated from the United States and 
not even forming a part of the geographical 
system of the American continents. 

The Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands form a mid- 
sea group in the North Pacific, entirely separate 
from any continental or other insular system. 
How isolated they are may be perceived from 
the fact that their capital, Honolulu, is 2100 miles 
from San Francisco, 3800 miles from Auckland, 
New Zealand, 4500 miles from Sydney, Australia, 
3400 miles from Yokohama, 4900 miles from 
Hong Kong, and 2400 miles from Tahiti. They 
thus geographically belong to no other country. 
Commercially, they form a mid-Pacific station of 
inestimable value and importance. As soon as the 
Pacific Ocean became a considerable highway of 
commerce, therefore, the disposition and control 
of them became a matter of much concern. The 
superiority of their inhabitants to most other 
Pacific islanders, however, caused them for many 
years to remain an independent sovereignty. 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 223 

The islands were probably discovered first by 
the Spaniard, Gaetano, in 1535, though he made 
no landing upon them and, of course, did not take 
possession. The first European to land upon 
them was the English explorer. Captain Cook, in 
1778, who lost his Hfe there a year later. Van- 
couver was the next visitor, and he so cultivated 
the good graces of the natives and of their king 
that on February 25, 1784, the islands were placed 
voluntarily under British protection, and the British 
flag was raised upon them. This action was taken, 
however, solely by the islanders, and was never 
ratified nor recognized as vaHd by the British gov- 
ernment ; wherefore it presently lapsed and was 
forgotten, and the islands remained independent, 
under a native king. A dozen years later Bara- 
noff, the governor of Alaska, attempted to seize 
the islands for Russia, and actually built a block- 
house at Waimea, but the Hawaiian s rose against 
the invaders, and the Russians were driven out. 

American relations with the islands began in 
1788, in a way which we might well wish to forget. 
A couple of armed trading vessels visited the 
islands, and in return for a slight grievance wan- 
tonly massacred a hundred or more of the natives. 
A little later the natives surprised and captured one 
of the vessels, and put to death all of its company 
except two men. These they kept in captivity for 
a time, and then released them. The men remained 
on the islands, cultivated the friendship of the 



224 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

people, were raised to the rank of chiefs, married 
native wives, and did much to teach the Hawaiians 
the arts of civihzation ; so that their memory is to 
this day cherished and honored by the people of 
the islands. It was one of these men who led the 
Hawaiians in the repulse of an expedition of the 
Russians, and it was these two and Vancouver 
who introduced into the islands a knowledge of 
Christianity. It was, however, many years before 
Christianity was generally accepted throughout 
the islands, that being finally effected through the 
labors of American missionaries, after one of the 
most remarkable experiences ever had by a people 
in search of a religion. 

King Kamehameha I, who died at the age of 
eighty-two in 1819, put an end to the old practice 
of human sacrifices. That was the first step 
toward a better faith. His widow, the Queen 
Regent Kaahumanu, guardian of the young 
Kamehameha II, took another step in the same 
direction. She abolished the system of " taboo " 
and all idol-worship, burning the idols and the 
temples that contained them. Thus were the 
devils of savage heathenism cast out, and the house 
was swept and garnished for a better tenant. 
Unhappily at the instant no better came, but 
only some even worse spirits than those of old. 
Left with practically no religion at all, the people 
swiftly sank into a moral, intellectual, and physical 
degradation to be remembered only with horror. 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 225 

However, redemption was preparing at the very 
moment of degradation. In 1809 a strange boy, 
speaking broken English and weeping bitterly, 
was found one day seated upon the door-steps of 
one of the buildings of Yale College, in New 
Haven. Taken in charge by benevolent people, 
he disclosed himself to be Obookiah, a Hawaiian 
orphan, who had come to this country with two 
companions on a whaling ship, to escape death in 
one of the tribal wars of his native land. He 
soon fell ill and died, but not before he had brought 
his two companions to the notice of his benefactors. 
These two, Hopu and Tamoree, were cared for 
and educated, and they became the founders of 
Christian civilization in Hawaii. When they grew 
to manhood they returned to Hawaii with a num- 
ber of Christian missionaries from New England. 
The little company reached Hawaii in March, 1820, 
and promptly began to battle with the evils which 
had fastened themselves upon the people. They 
were followed by other missionaries and American 
settlers, and within a few years succeeded in 
establishing Christianity as the prevailing religion 
of the people and in developing a goodly degree 
of civilization among the ruling classes of the 
natives. 

At about the same time the growing commercial 
importance of the islands prompted the establish- 
ment of diplomatic relations between them and the 
United States. An American consul was sent 

Q 



226 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

thither in 1820, and in 1828 Hawaii made with the 
United States her first treaty with any power — a 
"treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation." 
This convention was never ratified by the United 
States Senate, but it was treated by the Hawaiians 
as binding, and its provisions formed the basis of 
the subsequent relations between the two countries. 
Three years later, in 1 829, the President of the United 
States sent a friendly message to the Hawaiian 
government, formally recognizing its independence 
— the first such recognition ever given to Hawaii 
by any nation. In 1836 the Hawaiian government 
was coerced into making a treaty with Great 
Britain of similar character to that made with the 
United States, a British warship training her guns 
upon Honolulu as a measure of suasion, and in 
1839 a similar treaty was secured by PVance in a 
similar manner. Very soon afterward began the 
systematic aggressions upon the islands which led 
to a practical American protectorate and to the 
enunciation of a definite American poHcy concern- 
ing them. 

At this time, to wit, in the fifth decade of the 
nineteenth century, commerce on the Pacific Ocean 
had attained large proportions, and there naturally 
arose rivalry for the possession or control of, or at 
least paramount influence in, these islands, occupy- 
ing, as they did, so important a position in the 
mid-seas. Remote as the islands were from any 
continent, they were less remote from the United 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 227 

States than from any other, and the United States 
had a much larger commerce with them than 
had any other country. Naturally, therefore, the 
Hawaiians looked to this country as the one with 
which they ought to cultivate closest relations. 
In the fall of 1842, accordingly, the king sent 
Timothy Haalilo, a member of his suite, and 
William Richards, a clergyman, to Washington, to 
negotiate with the United States for more formal 
recognition as a sovereign power. 

These envoys addressed, on December 14, a letter 
to the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, setting 
forth with pardonable pride the progress which 
Hawaii had made in civilization and the arts of 
government. " A regular monarchical govern- 
ment," they said, "has been organized, of a limited 
and representative character. It has, moreover, 
been the uniform practice of consuls and com- 
mercial agents resident in His Majesty's dominions 
to demand all that protection, both of persons and 
property, which is demanded of sovereign and in- 
dependent states ; and this. His Majesty believes, 
has been duly and efficiently extended. While, 
therefore, all is demanded of his government, and 
all is rendered by it, which is demanded of or 
rendered by the governments of sovereign and 
independent states, he feels that he has a right to 
expect his state to be acknowledged as such, and 
thus be formally received into the general compact 
of sovereign nations." 



228 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

This was a noteworthy application, to be made 
by such a nation at such a time, and, we may add, 
to such a government. For the United States 
was then a slave-holding nation, and pro-slavery 
influences were dominant in its government, and 
men of dark skins were held to be unworthy of 
poHtical recognition by men with light skins. 
Nevertheless, the application was sympathetically 
received, and Webster made in reply to Messrs. 
Haalilo and Richards this important declaration: — 

" The United States have regarded the existing 
authorities in the Sandwich Islands as a Govern- 
ment suited to the condition of the people, and 
resting on their own choice, and the President is 
of opinion that the interests of all commercial 
nations require that that Government should not 
be interfered with by foreign powers. Of the ves- 
sels which visit the islands, it is known that the 
great majority belong to the United States. The 
United States are, therefore, more interested in 
the fate of the islands and of their Government 
than any other nation can be, and this considera- 
tion induces the President to be quite willing to 
declare, as the sense of the Government of the 
United States, that the Government of the Sand- 
wich Islands ought to be respected ; that no power 
ought either to take possession of the islands as a 
conquest or for the purpose of colonization, and 
that no power ought to seek for any undue control 
over the existing Government, ^or any exclusive 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 229 

privilege or preferences with it in matters of 
commerce." 

That was the first explicit declaration of policy 
concerning the islands, and it was thereafter con- 
sistently maintained, with such logical develop- 
ments as the progress of events made necessary. 
Precisely the same policy was set forth by Presi- 
dent Tyler in his message to Congress on Decem- 
ber 30, 1842. But it was not long before that 
policy was sharply challenged by a foreign and 
rival power. 

In February, 1843, the British warship Carys- 
fort, commanded by Lord George Paulet, unex- 
pectedly appeared in the harbor of Honolulu, On 
the pretence that British subjects had been re- 
peatedly insulted by the island government, Lord 
George peremptorily demanded a personal inter- 
view with the king, threatening to bombard the 
town within twenty-four hours if it were not 
granted, in addition to the granting of various 
other excgssive and unjust demands. The evi- 
dent purpose was to bully the Hawaiian govern- 
ment into submission to British dictation. The 
king was helpless and hopeless. Resistance was 
impossible. Defiance meant ruin. Therefore he 
yielded, but not in the way Lord George had ex- 
pected. Instead of granting the demands, he 
ceded the whole of his kingdom outright to the 
British crown. It was a logical step. To have 
granted Lord George's demands would have made 



230 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

the British practically masters of the islands, though 
reserving nominal responsibility for them to the 
natives. The king well argued that if the British 
were to have the power, they should bear the re- 
sponsibility, too. So the cession was made, and 
the British flag was raised over the islands in 
token of sovereignty. A " Queen's Own " regi- 
ment was formed, and the officers took the oath 
of allegiance to the British sovereign. 

The Hawaiian king did not mean, however, to 
make such a surrender of his kingdom permanent 
without some further effort. Immediately after 
the act of cession he wrote to the President of the 
United States, relating the circumstances of the 
British conquest and imploring the good offices of 
the United States for the undoing of the great 
wrong. The prayer of the king was not unheeded. 
Indeed, it was impossible that the United States 
should not act in the matter, after having so re- 
cently committed itself to the principle of Hawai- 
ian independence. Webster, through the American 
minister to England, informed the British govern- 
ment of the views expressed in the President's 
message of December, 1842, and added that the 
government of the United States "would exceed- 
ingly regret that suspicion of a sinister purpose of 
any kind on the part of the United States should 
prevent England and France from adopting the 
same pacific, just, and conservative course toward 
the government and people of this remote but 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 23 1 

interesting group of islands." The result was 
that the British government promptly and com- 
pletely repudiated the act of Lord George Paulet 
and restored the sovereignty of the native govern- 
ment of Hawaii. In April, 1843, the British gov- 
ernment formally recognized the independence of 
Hawaii. More than that, it made it clear that it 
would object to any meddhng with those islands 
by France, which latter power had just seized the 
Marquesas Islands and was suspected of designs 
upon Hawaii. Finally, in November, 1843, the 
British and French governments mutually agreed 
"to consider the Sandwich Islands as an indepen- 
dent State, and never to take possession, either 
directly or under the title of protectorate or any 
other form of any part of the territory of which 
they are composed." 

Meantime, in March, 1842, an American " com- 
missioner," who was practically a diplomatic min- 
ister, was accredited to the Hawaiian court. In 
June following, the attitude of the United States 
toward the islands was further stated by Mr. 
Legare, then Secretary of State, to be such that 
" we might even feel justified, consistently with 
our own principles, in interfering by force to pre- 
vent their falling (by conquest) into the hands of 
one of the great powers of Europe." This decla- 
ration was made in a letter to Mr. Everett, United 
States minister to England, and was thus practi- 
cally a formal notice to the British government. 



232 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

It was not resented nor challenged, but was tacitly 
acquiesced in, and for a few years the islands re- 
mained undisturbed by European aggressions. 

Commercial and other treaties were made, how- 
ever, with France and Great Britain, and in 1849 
trouble arose over the interpretation of these. 
The French government complained that its treaty 
had been wantonly broken by Hawaii, and sent a 
couple of warships to Honolulu to demand instant 
redress, under menace of bombardment. Although 
the French commander declared that neither con- 
quest nor occupation of the islands was intended, 
the American consul at Honolulu protested against 
all his proceedings, and in that protest was joined 
by the British and other consuls. Nevertheless, 
the French commander landed a force of marines, 
destroyed some public buildings, and seized others. 
The king made no resistance, but protested and 
made another appeal to the United States. The 
United States promptly responded. Mr. Clayton, 
then Secretary of State, informed the French gov- 
ernment through the American minister, Mr. 
Rives, that the relations between the United States 
and the Hawaiian Islands were such " that we 
could never, with indifference, allow them to pass 
under the dominion or exclusive control of any 
other power." 

That was explicit, but it did not prove effective. 
Louis Napoleon had become the head of the French 
government, and in the furtherance of his criminal 



MID- SEA POSSESSIONS 233 

ambition he sought to gain all possible prestige 
through foreign conquests, and he showed little 
regard for the wishes of the country in which he 
had once been glad to find an asylum. The French 
aggressions upon Hawaii therefore continued, and 
early in 185 1 seemed about to come to a crisis. 
The Hawaiians besought the United States consul 
to take the lead in resistance to French conquest, 
and the consul prepared to do so. The king and 
his counsellors planned to raise the American flag 
the moment the French began an actual attack, 
and to proclaim the cession of the islands to the 
United States, and the king placed in the hands of 
the American consul a sealed paper, to be opened 
and acted upon whenever the American flag should 
thus be raised. 

This paper, signed, and sealed by the king, 
declared that " finding our relations with France so 
oppressive to my kingdom, so inconsistent with its 
rights as an independent State, and so obstructive 
of all our endeavors to administer the government 
of our Islands with equal justice with all nations, 
and equal independence of all foreign control, and 
despairing of justice and equity from France, we 
hereby proclaim as our royal will and pleasure that 
all our islands and all our rights as Sovereign over 
them, are, from the date hereof, placed under the 
protection and safeguard of the United States of 
America until some arrangement can be made to 
place our said relations with France upon a footing 



234 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

compatible with my rights as an independent sover- 
eign under the law of nations ; or, if such arrange- 
ments be found impracticable, then it is our wish 
and pleasure that the protection aforesaid under 
the United States of America be perpetual." 
This action by the king was ratified by both houses 
of the Hawaiian Parhament, and unquestionably 
expressed the sentiments of the Hawaiian people. 

But the fulfilment of this plan was not needed. 
Daniel Webster was again Secretary of State at 
Washington, and he made the wishes and intentions 
of the United States known to France in a way 
that not even Louis Napoleon ventured to disre- 
gard. The further enforcement of the French 
demands upon Hawaii, he wrote, in June, 1851, 
"would be tantamount to a subjugation of the 
islands to the dominion of France. A step like 
this could not fail to be viewed by the Government 
^and people of the United States with a dissatisfac- 
tion which would tend seriously to disturb our ex- 
isting friendly relations with the French Govern- 
ment." Therefore he called upon France not only 
to refrain from further aggressions but also to 
make amends for the acts already committed 
against the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Islands 
and against the law of nations. That was plain 
talk. It was doubtless most unwelcome to Louis 
Napoleon. But the United States was a great 
power, and the pinchbeck " Prince President " was 
not so fully established in his usurped place as to ven- 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 235 

ture upon an open breach with it. So the French 
demands were quickly withdrawn, and the French 
government was profuse in its disclaimers of any 
intention of interfering with Hawaiian sovereignty. 
In the fall of that year President Fillmore, in 
his message to Congress, again set forth the Amer- 
ican policy concerning Hawaii. " The Hawaiian 
Islands," he said, "are ten times nearer to the 
United States than to any of the powers of Europe. 
Five-sixths of all their commercial intercourse is 
with the United States, and these considerations, 
together with others of a more general character, 
have fixed the course which the Government of the 
United States will pursue in regard to them. That 
policy is, that while the Government of the United 
States itself, faithful to its original assurance, 
scrupulously regards the independence of the 
Hawaiian Islands, it can never consent to see those \ 
islands taken possession of by either of the great 
commercial powers of Europe, nor can it consent 
that demands manifestly unjust and derogatory, 
and inconsistent with a bona fide independence, 
shall be enforced against that government." 
This declaration went a step farther than its pred- 
ecessors, in that it seemed to indicate that the 
United States would resist peaceful acquisition of 
the islands by England or France, through cession, 
just as it would forcible conquest of them. The 
same impression was produced by the statement of 
Mr. Marcy, Secretary of State, in September, 



236 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

1853, when he wrote to Mr. Gregg, the Ameri- 
can representative in Hawaii, "While we do not 
intend to attempt the exercise of any exclusive 
control over them, we are resolved that no other 
power or State shall exact any political or com- 
mercial privileges from them which we are not 
permitted to enjoy, far less to establish any protecto- 
rate over them." 

Mr. Marcy soon afterward, 'however, took an- 
other step, which must be regarded as ill-advised, 
seeing how earnestly the United States had been 
protesting that it had no thought of subverting in 
any way the independence of Hawaii. He wrote 
to Mr. Mason, the minister at Paris, in December, 
1853, concerning the Islands, " It seems to be inevi- 
table that they must come under the control of this 
Government, and it would be but reasonable and 
fair that these powers (France and England) 
should acquiesce in such a disposition of them, 
provided the transference was effected by fair 
means." Mr. Marcy doubtless assumed this atti- 
tude because of the then recent acquisition of Cali- 
fornia by the United States and our consequently 
greatly increased interests in the Pacific. But in 
view of subsequent events he must be regarded as 
having too much anticipated the remote future. 
Doubtless, even at that time ultimate annexation 
of Hawaii to the United States was inevitable. 
But the true course, for the sake of American 
honor and good faith, would have been to post- 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 237 

pone that act as far as possible by sustaining and 
encouraging Hawaiian independence instead of 
trying to hasten it by discouraging and breaking 
down the native insular government. 

The latter course, however, was adopted by Mr. 
Marcy and by President Pierce. The American min- 
ister to Hawaii was secretly instructed to encourage 
the annexation scheme, and as a result he reported 
to Mr. Marcy in February, 1854, that the king 
was incHned to offer the sovereignty of the islands 
to the United States. Mr. Marcy replied, encour- 
aging the scheme and instructing the minister 
how to proceed in its realization. The British and 
French consuls protested, and the former in a long 
personal interview with the king earnestly en- 
deavored to dissuade him from the contemplated 
step. It was in vain. The treaty of annexation 
was drafted, and Mr. Marcy, in January, 1855, 
wrote to Mr. Gregg at Honolulu that "this Gov- 
ernment will receive the transfer of the sovereignty 
of the Sandwich Islands." But at the last moment 
it became evident to Mr. Marcy that some of the 
provisions which the Hawaiians had inserted into 
the treaty would not receive the approval of the 
United States Senate or that of the nation. Espe- 
cially and unquestionably was that true of the 
remarkable stipulation that the islands should be 
admitted into the Union as a state. Mr. Marcy in- 
formed Mr. Gregg, therefore, of the hopelessness 
of the outlook, and the whole matter was dropped. 



238 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

Thus, in the course of a few years, Great Britain, 
France, and the United States successively but 
vainly intrigued for the acquisition of the islands. 
Thereafter for a decade the islands remained 
undisturbed. But all the time American interests 
and influences in them were increasing. The 
whaling industry had declined, but the sugar in- 
dustry was enormously developed and was a potent 
factor in strengthening the commercial and politi- 
cal bonds between Hawaii and the United States. 
So close did this relationship become that in 1866 
steps were taken for the making of a reciprocity 
treaty between the two countries. Such a conven- 
tion was concluded in May, 1867, and was ratified 
by the Hawaiian legislature. It was, however, 
rejected by the United States Senate, partly be- 
cause of the antagonism of that body to President 
Johnson and all his works, and partly because the 
Secretary of State himself, Mr. Seward, was in- 
clined to let reciprocity drop in favor of annexa- 
tion. " A lawful and peaceful annexation of the 
islands to the United States," wrote Mr. Seward, 
" is deemed desirable by this Government ; and, if 
the policy of annexation should really conflict with 
the policy of reciprocity, annexation is in every 
case to be preferred." 

The outcome was that both projects failed and 
had for the time to be abandoned. Reciprocity 
was sacrificed to annexation, and annexation failed 
because it was supposed to mean, as it would have 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 239 

meant in 1855, the admission of Hawaii as a state. '^ 
On such terms, as Mr. Seward himself said, " the 
pubHc mind in the United States was not, in 1868, 
in a condition to entertain the question of the 
annexation of the Sandwich Islands." The con- 
viction had arisen and was already being firmly es- 
tablished that, however much territory the nation 
might acquire, no new states should be admitted 
to the Union from non-contiguous lands or from 
islands of the sea. The United States should be 
kept " the United States of America," a compact, 
homogeneous continental domain. 

The desire for annexation would not down, how- 
ever, and in 1873 it again became vocal. It was 
strongly expressed in the islands, and commenting 
upon that fact the United States Secretary of State, 
Mr. Fish, wrote to the minister to Hawaii, Mr. 
Peirce, that he should, '* without committing the 
government to any line of policy, not discourage 
the feeling in favor of annexation," but that he 
should cautiously and discreetly ascertain on 
what terms the Hawaiian government would 
assent to annexation. 

But again the annexation plans came to naught, 
largely because of the opposition manifested by 
a faction of the United States Senate to all 
the expansionist proposals of President Grant's 
administration. Not only was the acquisition of 
Hawaii at that time thus prevented, but the pur- 
chase of the Danish West India Islands and per- 



240 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

haps the annexation of the Dominican Republic 
were similarly defeated. 

But in 1875, annexation appearing ,to be out of 
the question, the long-delayed and much-needed 
reciprocity treaty with Hawaii was concluded and 
ratified. The latter became the cause of a sharp 
controversy in 1881, when Great Britain endeav- 
ored to secure the same preferential treatment in 
commercial affairs which Hawaii granted to the 
United States. Against this, which the Hawaiian 
government was inclined to grant, the American 
Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine, vigorously and effec- 
tively protested, taking the logical and equitable 
ground that the privileges of a reciprocity treaty 
were to be enjoyed exclusively by the countries 
making the treaty, and were not to be extended to 
any other under the " most favored nation " clause 
of ordinary commercial conventions. Mr. Blaine 
also took occasion to reassert with much emphasis 
the determination of the United States " that, 
under no circumstances, will it permit the transfer 
of the territory or sovereignty of these islands to 
any of the great European powers." "The Ha- 
waiian Islands," he added, "cannot be joined to the 
Asiatic system. If they drift from their independent 
station, it must be toward assimilation and identi- 
fication with the American system, to which they 
belong by the operation of natural laws and must 
belong by the operation of political necessity." 

The next step of importance was taken in 1887, 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 24 1 

in the provisional cession of Pearl Harbor to the 
United States. That superb harbor, a few miles 
from Honolulu, had long been desired as a com- 
mercial and naval station. It was not only by far 
the best harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, but also 
one of the strongest and most commodious in the 
world. The cession of it was made by the Hawaiian 
government in return for a renewal of the reci- 
procity treaty, and the Hawaiian understanding 
doubtless was that the United States should have 
possession of the harbor only so long as the reci- 
procity treatment remained in force. The United 
States, on the other hand, was inclined to hold that 
the cession of the harbor was perpetual, no matter 
what became of reciprocity. At the same time the 
British government protested against American 
acquisition ^of Pearl Harbor as an act calculated to 
impair the independent sovereignty of the islands, 
and suggested that the United States should join 
Great Britain and France in a tripartite compact 
similar to the Anglo-French agreement of 1843,. 
guaranteeing the neutrality and equal accessibility,' 
of the islands and all their harbors to all nations. 
This proposal the United States decHned in a con- 
vincing manner, and the Hawaiian government 
also effectively replied to a British protest against 
its cession of Pearl Harbor to the United States. 
The title of the United States to Pearl Harbor 
was thus maintained and securely established. 
Yet the United States government, with the 



242 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ineptitude and hesitation which at times mark its 
conduct, for many years thereafter neglected to 
improve or even to take formal possession of Pearl 
Harbor, but left that priceless appanage entirely 
unimproved and unused. 

In the summer of 1889 came the beginning of 
the end of Hawaiian independence. In 1874, at 
the accession of King Kalakaua, and in the dispute 
between him and Queen Emma for possession of 
the crown, United States troops were landed at 
Honolulu for the protection of life and property. 
At the end of July, 1889, such intervention was 
again required in the case of an organized revolt 
against King Kalakaua. United States forces oc- 
cupied the capital and maintained order. But the 
seeds of revolution remained vital. Kalakaua died 
in January, 1891, and was succeeded by his sister, 
Liliuokalani, as queen. She was generally be- 
lieved, and not without cause, to have instigated 
the revolt of 1889 as a protest against the liberal 
policy of Kalakaua and the liberal constitution 
which had been established by him. Her arbitrary 
conduct on ascending the throne soon confirmed 
this belief. She made evident her dissatisfaction 
with the constitution, and began more or less 
openly planning for its abrogation or, at least, for 
the evasion of some of its provisions. The legis- 
lature perceived this and resented it. In the fall 
of 1892 it passed a vote of lack of confidence in 
the queen's ministry, and there ensued an open 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 243 

conflict between the two branches of the govern- 
ment. Mr. Stevens, the United States minister, 
wrote home to the State Department at Washing- 
ton that in his opinion the queen would have to 
yield, constitutionally, or the monarchy would be 
overthrown, and he added the suggestion that one 
of two courses would have to be followed : " Either 
bold and vigorous measures for annexation, or a 
customs union, an ocean cable from the Californian 
coast to Honolulu, Pearl Harbor perpetually ceded 
to the United States with an implied but not 
necessarily stipulated American protectorate over 
the islands." The President strongly recommended 
the laying of the cable and the occupation and 
improvement of Pearl Harbor, but Congress con- 
tinued stupidly to neglect those important under- 
takings, while the islands steadily drifted toward 
anarchy. 

The ultimate revolution came at the beginning 
of 1893. The queen had tried to force upon the 
legislature a ministry entirely unacceptable to it 
and unfit for office, but had been forced to yield 
according to the requirements of the constitution. 
Thereupon she began to prepare a new constitu- 
tion embodying her reactionary and despotic politi- 
cal policies, which she intended to impose upon 
the islands in place of the existing constitution, if 
necessary by a forcible coup d'etat. At the same 
time she used all her influence in favor of corrupt 
legislation, chartering the notorious Louisiana Lot- 



244 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

tery swindle and also an opium ring, to which 
legislation, when enacted, she eagerly gave her 
assent and signature. 

The attempted coup d' etat came at a well-chosen 
time. It was early in January, 1893. At that time 
the American cruiser Boston, which had been sta- 
tioned at Honolulu to protect United States inter- 
ests, had gone away for a practice cruise, and the 
American minister, Mr. Stevens, had gone with it. 
There was no force at hand capable of intervening 
in any emergency. The queen had, she supposed, 
the islands at her mercy. Accordingly, she an- 
nounced that the constitution of 1887, under which 
she had succeeded to the throne, and which she 
had sworn to maintain, was to be abrogated, and 
replaced by a new one dictated by herself. Under 
this new constitution representative government 
was to be practically abolished, one house of the 
legislature and the ministry being appointed by 
the sovereign entirely at her own will. Moreover, 
all white men, excepting those who were married 
to native women, were to be disfranchised. 

The proclamation of this astounding measure 
aroused the people of Honolulu to something like 
frenzy. The white people and many of the more 
intelligent Kanakas saw in it the gravest menace 
to Hawaiian civilization, and prepared to resist it to 
the bitter end. The less responsible portion of the 
community and the disorderly elements hailed it as 
promising a return of the old-time conditions of 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 245 

license and savagery. The queen's ministers de- 
serted her and opposed her coup ifetat, while some 
Kanaka members of her " kitchen cabinet " vehe- 
mently supported her and urged the mob to rise 
against the white people and massacre them. All 
the military forces of the islands were called out to 
enforce the queen's will, while the better elements 
of the community organized for self-defence and 
for the maintenance of the constitution. Thus for 
a few days the two parties literally rested on their 
arms, ready at any moment for civil war. Then 
the queen issued two proclamations. One was 
addressed to the general pubUc, announcing that 
she would not insist upon the promulgation of her 
new constitution, but would wait until she could 
reach an agreement with her ministers upon it. 
The other, addressed to her native followers in 
their native language, declared that she would soon 
find a way of overcoming the opposition of her 
ministers and would then establish such a consti- 
tution as she and her Kanaka friends desired. 

This two-faced action precipitated the crisis. A 
Committee of Public Safety was formed, which 
took possession of the government offices, the 
ministers promptly resigning in its favor. The 
queen and her adherents retired to her private 
residence, which was put into a state of siege. 
Lawless Kanakas began the systematic practice of 
arson and robbery. A reign of terror prevailed, 
and the whole community seemed on the verge of 



246 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

anarchy. Then, as a last resort, the Committee of 
Public Safety made appeal to the United States 
minister, who had returned with the Boston, for 
aid in maintaining law and order. Mr. Stevens 
promptly responded. He had two precedents for 
so doing. Twice, with governmental approval, 
United States forces had been landed for such a 
purpose years before. Three squads of marines 
and sailors from the Boston were posted at com- 
manding points in the city. That was all. There 
was no need of action. Not a shot was fired. The 
presence of United States forces awed the mob 
and reassured all law-abiding citizens. 

The next step was the deposition of the queen. 
This was formally proclaimed on January 17, by 
the Committee of Public Safety, in the presence 
of a vast assemblage of the people of Honolulu. It 
was declared that the Hawaiian monarchy had 
ceased to exist and that a provisional government 
had been formed " for the control and management 
of public affairs and the protection of the public 
peace . . . until terms of union with the United 
States of America " should be agreed upon. The 
miUtary and police forces of the islands then sur- 
rendered to the provisional government, and the 
revolution was complete without the loss of a 
single life. The queen earnestly protested against 
her dethronement, declaring that it had been 
effected only through the interference of the 
American minister and his use of American troops. 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 247 

She yielded, she said, to such force, only for the 
sake of avoiding bloodshed and until such time as 
the American government, learning the facts of 
the case, should undo the wrong its minister had 
done, and should reinstate her in her lawful place. 

The provisional government was promptly rec- 
ognized by the representatives at Honolulu of the 
United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, 
Russia, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Mexico, Peru, 
Chile, and China, and after some delay by those of 
Great Britain and France. A commission was 
quickly sent by the provisional government to 
Washington to negotiate a treaty of annexation, 
while the queen sent a commissioner of her own 
to protest against the revolution and to give to the 
President her side of the story. Meantime, at the 
request of the provisional government, the United 
States minister proclaimed a United States protec- 
torate over the islands and raised the American 
flag in place of the Hawaiian. 

Much criticism was afterward directed against 
various features of this revolution. It was said 
that it was a gratuitous conspiracy against the 
monarchy organized by Americans. There is no 
proof to that effect, but, on the contrary, it seems 
to be established that the conspiracy was on the 
queen's side and was directed against the constitu- 
tional liberties of the islands and against the treaty 
rights of Americans. The revolution was a defen- 
sive and not an aggressive one. It was said that 



248 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

in proclaiming the establishment of the provisional 
government " until terms of union with the United 
States " should be agreed upon, the revolutionists 
betrayed their real design to sell out Hawaii to 
America. That criticism is answered by the fact 
of record, that more than once, years before, Ha- 
waiian kings had, with the cordial support of the 
Hawaiian people, earnestly striven to secure pre- 
cisely such union with the United States. In 
adopting that course, the provisional government 
was merely pursuing the long-established national 
policy of Hawaii. Finally, Mr. Stevens was criti- 
cised for declaring an American protectorate over 
the islands and even for landing troops. But, as 
we have seen, troops had similarly been landed 
twice before, in 1884 and in 1889, and the protec- 
torate was nothing but the logical carrying out of 
the long-established policy of the United States 
toward those islands. If we recall the provisional 
cession of the islands to the United States in 185 1, 
the doings of 1893 are seen not to lack justifying 
precedent. 

The Hawaiian commissioners reached Washing- 
ton on February 3, and soon concluded with Presi- 
dent Harrison a treaty, ceding the sovereignty of 
the islands to the United States, and providing for 
a handsome pension for the deposed queen and a 
substantial indemnity for the heir presumptive. 
This treaty was signed and sent to the Senate for 
ratification. In transmitting it, the President said : 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 249 

** The overthrow of the monarchy was not in any 
way promoted by this government, but had its 
origin in what seems to have been a reactionary 
and revokitionary poHcy on the part of Queen 
Liliuokalani, which put in serious peril not only 
the large and preponderating interests of the 
United States in the islands but also all foreign 
interests and, indeed, the decent administration of 
civil affairs and the peace of the islands. . . . The 
restoration of Queen Liliuokalani to her throne is 
undesirable, if not impossible, and, unless actively 
supported by the United States, would be accom- 
panied by serious disaster and the disorganization 
of all business interests. . . Only two courses are 
now open, — one, the establishment of a protector- 
ate by the United States, and the other, annexation, 
full and complete. I think the latter course, which 
has been adopted in the treaty, will be highly pro- 
motive of the best interests of the Hawaiian people, 
and is the only one that will adequately secure the 
interests of the United States. Those interests are 
not wholly selfish. It is essential that none of the 
other great powers shall secure these islands. Such 
a possession would not consist with our safety and 
with the peace of the world." 

The treaty was submitted to the Senate on Feb- 
ruary 15. The Senate was too busy with other 
matters to give it prompt attention. On March 4 
Mr. Harrison retired from the Presidency and was 
succeeded by Mr. Cleveland, and one of the first 



250 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ofBcial acts of the latter was to withdraw the treaty 
from the Senate without ratification. He was not 
convinced of the correctness of Mr. Harrison's 
statement that the United States government had 
not in any way promoted the overthrow of the 
Hawaiian monarchy. That statement was flatly 
contradicted by the ex-queen. Accordingly, he 
deemed it fitting to suspend annexation operations 
until he could carefully investigate the whole 
matter. In pursuance of this purpose, Mr. Cleve- 
land appointed Mr. James H. Blount a "commis- 
sioner paramount " to Hawaii, accrediting him to 
the provisional government, and investing him 
with autocratic authority over that of the United 
States minister and the United States naval com- 
mander in Hawaii. Mr. Cleveland thus sent Mr. 
Blount as his personal representative, and there- 
fore declined to submit his appointment to the 
Senate for ratification — a somewhat noteworthy 
bit of personal government. 

Mr. Blount reached Honolulu on March 29, and 
two days later hauled down the American flag and 
sent back to the ship ah the American troops which 
had been landed. For some weeks thereafter he 
was busily engaged in his work of investigation, in 
which he chiefly consulted the ex-queen and her 
partisans, holding that the other side of the case 
had already been fully presented by the provi- 
sional government. The result was a report to 
the President unfavorable to the provisional gov- 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 2$ I 

ernment. Acting upon this report, President 
Cleveland, in December, 1893, declared in his 
message to Congress that the lawful government 
of Hawaii had been overthrown through "the 
agency of the United States acting through its 
diplomatic and naval representatives." He held 
that Mr. Stevens had acted with gross impro- 
priety, and that for the United States to annex 
the islands in such circumstances would be to 
incur "the imputation of acquiring them by un- 
justifiable methods." He therefore declined to 
resubmit the annexation treaty to the Senate. 

This action of Mr. Cleveland's provoked intense 
excitement throughout the United States, and both 
praise and blame of the most extreme character. 
Unhappily, as is so often the case in America and 
elsewhere, expressions of opinion both pro and 
contra were largely inspired by political and par- 
tisan feeling rather than based upon principles 
and convictions. It may even now be too early 
to expect the formation and general acceptance of 
a dispassionate and impartial judgment upon the 
matter. But it can scarcely be disputed that the 
action of Mr. Stevens and of President Harrison 
was in accord with the unbroken precedents of a 
hundred years, set by statesmen of both political 
parties, and that the policy adopted by Mr. Cleve- 
land involved a radical departure therefrom. 

The incidents immediately following seemed, 
moreover, to mark Mr. Cleveland's action with 



252 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

doubtful consistency. He offered to appoint Mr. 
Blount as minister to Hawaii in place of Mr. Stevens, 
and upon Mr. Blount's declination he appointed 
Mr. Albert S. Willis, who went to Honolulu at the 
beginning of November, 1893. Now Mr. Willis 
was specifically accredited to the provisional gov- 
ernment, or to Sanford B. Dole, the head thereof. 
Yet he was accredited by a President who re- 
garded that government as an unlawful and im- 
moral thing, and he was instructed to do all in his 
power to overthrow it. He was instructed, more- 
over, to cultivate relations with the ex-queen, and 
to encourage her in her attempts to undo the revo- 
lution and to regain her throne. 

Never, perhaps, did a diplomatist have a more 
distasteful mission. Mr. Willis, a high-minded 
gentleman, conscientiously strove to fulfil it. But 
every step he took made it seem more distasteful 
and more impossible. He went to the ex-queen 
and expressed to her the President's expectation 
that she would, when reinstated, grant full am- 
nesty to the leaders of the revolution. She bluntly 
replied that she would chop their heads off and 
confiscate their property. She also declared her 
unalterable determination to abrogate the constitu- 
tion of 1897 and to disenfranchise and expatriate 
all white men save those who had intermarried 
with Kanakas. Mr. Willis strove to alter her sav- 
age determination, but in vain, and then reported 
the result of his interview with her to the President. 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 253 

There arose at this time a popular idea that the 
United States meant to restore the ex-queen to her 
throne by force. This was based upon a recom- 
mendation to that effect which was made to the 
President by the Secretary of State, Mr. Gresham. 
The President did not act upon it, and probably 
never intended to do so. But the people of Hono- 
lulu feared it, and flew to arms to resist it to the 
uttermost. Mr. Willis meanwhile renewed his 
efforts to bring the e.x-queen to a more reasonable 
and less vindictive frame of mind, and at last suc- 
ceeded. He secured from her, at any rate, on 
December 18, a promise of full pardon and am- 
nesty to all who had taken part in the revolution. 
Thereupon he made upon the provisional govern- 
ment a formal demand that it should relinquish its 
authority to the ex-queen, restore her to the throne, 
and efface itself. This extraordinary demand was 
made by the minister to the government to which 
he was accredited, and in the name of the govern- 
ment which had accredited him to it. Surely it 
involved some strange contradictions and stultifica- 
tions. If the provisional government was a lawful 
one, it was wrong to demand that it should abdi- 
cate. If, on the other hand, it was an unlawful 
one, then the American minister, being accredited 
solely to that unlawful body, had no legal status. 

The provisional government made a prompt and 
powerful reply. It declared that its dispute with 
the ex-queen was a purely domestic Hawaiian 



254 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

affair, with which the United States had no busi- 
ness to meddle unless invited to do so as an arbitra- 
tor ; that the United States had not been invited 
to act as arbitrator, and that it had therefore no 
status in the case; and that the question of im- 
proper action by American officials in the revolu- 
tion was one which the United States must settle 
with its own officials and not with the provisional 
government. Finally, it positively refused to com- 
ply with the demand for the surrender of its 
authority to the ex-queen. This reply of the 
Hawiian government was dignified, logical, con- 
vincing, and effective. For some time suspense 
and anxiety prevailed in the islands, lest the 
United States should use force for the restoration 
of the queen. Preparations were continued for 
resistance to such an attempt, and at one time a 
bloody conflict seemed impending. That was 
when two United States warships appeared in the 
harbor of Honolulu, and drew their men up in 
battle array upon the decks, in full view of the 
city. On shore the Hawaiian forces were called 
to arms and loaded cannon were trained upon the 
ships. But a United States naval officer came 
ashore and privately reassured the Hawaiian s of 
his peaceful intent. He expressed full sympathy 
with the provisional government, and intimated 
that if he and his men were ordered to interfere 
for the restoration of the queen they would have 
no heart in the work, and he significantly added 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 255 

the suggestion, " If our boats, with armed ma- 
rines, put out from the ship, and if you fire a 
charge over our heads, we shall be obUged to put 
back and abandon our purpose." 

This unwillingness of the United States to use 
force for the restoration of the queen was fully 
and finally confirmed a few days later, when Presi- 
dent Cleveland confessed himself baffled by the 
resolute front of the provisional government, and 
withdrew from the whole matter, leaving it to 
Congress to dispose of as it saw fit. Congress, 
of course, could do little, save to let the Hawaiians 
go on undisturbed and work out their own salva- 
tion. This the Hawaiians did in capable fashion. 
In January, 1895, there was a small revolt of the 
royalists, which was quickly suppressed, and the 
ex-queen was arrested for complicity in it, tried, 
and sentenced to imprisonment in her own palace. 
Soon afterward she formally abdicated the throne. 
Meantime, on July 4, 1894, the Republic of Ha- 
waii was proclaimed and the provisional govern- 
ment gave place to a permanent constitutional 
government, with Sanford B. Dole as President 
of the new commonwealth. 

The abdication of the queen left the legal status 
of the republican government in Hawaii unchal- 
lengeable, and that government vindicated itself 
by its admirable administration of insular affairs. 
Discussion of the desirability of annexation con- 
tinued for several years to be a leading feature in 



256 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

United States politics, and was intensified by sev- 
eral incidents. One of these latter was the effort 
of Japan to fill the islands with colonists from her 
own shores and thus gain political control of them. 
Another, still more important, was the attempt 
of Great Britain to secure one of the smaller islands 
for use as a cable landing and perhaps a naval sta- 
tion. It was late in 1894 that the British govern- 
ment made application to the Hawaiian government 
for the lease of either Neckar Island, Bird Island, 
or French Frigate Shoal for a mid-sea station for 
the trans-Pacific cable which it was about to lay. 
The Hawaiian government was inclined to grant 
the request, especially since the United States with 
discreditable lack of enterprise showed no signs of 
ever itself laying a cable across the Pacific or even 
to Honolulu. But the Hawaiian government had 
previously agreed not to let any foreign nation 
land a cable upon any of its islands without the 
consent of the United States, and it accordingly in- 
formed this government of the British application. 
President Cleveland transmitted the information 
to Congress, with an earnest recommendation that 
permission for the lease be granted. Congress, 
however, thought differently. It observed that 
Great Britain already had at Bermuda a cable and 
naval station off our Atlantic coast, and it did not 
mean to let her have one off our Pacific coast, too, 
especially on land which was destined soon to be- 
long to the United States. It therefore promptly 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 257 

refused to grant the British request, or to author- 
ize the Hawaiian government to do so. Then the 
British, discovering that Neckar Island was unoc- 
cupied and had, in fact, never been formally claimed 
by the Hawaiians and possession of it taken by 
them, planned to send a vessel there and seize it as 
a No Man's Land which any comer might pos- 
sess. This intention being suspected by the 
Hawaiians, they hastily sent a ship thither and 
raised the Hawaiian flag. Great Britain was thus 
compelled to look elsewhither for her mid-sea cable 
station. But it is to be noted, to her credit and 
not to ours, that she found such a station and had 
a trans-Pacific cable laid and working long before 
the United States got one laid as far as Honolulu. 
Soon after the accession of William McKinley to 
the Presidency in 1897, another annexation treaty 
was negotiated and laid before the Senate. It 
closely resembled the former one, which Mr. 
Cleveland had withdrawn, excepting that it made 
no provision for a pension for the ex-queen or for 
her heir. Princess Kaiulani. Such provision was 
omitted to punish the ex-queen for her attempt 
to overthrow the Hawaiian Republic in 1895. It 
may be stated in this place, however, that generous 
fortunes have since been settled by Hawaii upon 
those persons. Long and earnest debates were held 
upon the treaty in executive sessions of the Senate, 
in which much opposition to it was developed. 
Much of this was based upon the entirely proper 



258 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ground that the treaty seemed to promise state- 
hood for Hawaii, and to such a status for the 
islands there were insurmountable objections. 
Ultimately it was found that while a majority of 
the Senate favored the treaty, the required two- 
thirds majority for ratification of it could not be se- 
cured. The treaty was therefore laid aside, and it 
was planned to annex Hawaii by means of a joint 
resolution of Congress, as had been done in the 
case of Texas, half a century before ; such a reso- 
lution requiring only a majority vote. 

The resolution was prepared, in much the same 
terms as the treaty, but scrupulously avoiding any 
promise of statehood. It simply declared that the 
United States would accept the cession of Hawaiian 
sovereignty, and that the islands should become " a 
part of the territory of the United States." It was 
further added that only a portion of the laws of 
the United States should at once apply to the 
islands, thus clearly intimating that the new terri- 
tory would not be under the Constitution until so 
placed by special act, and would not be a part of 
the Union of States. The urgency of Cuban af- 
fairs and the war with Spain' in the spring of 1898 
so absorbed the attention of Congress that action 
upon the resolution was delayed for some time. 
But during the war with Spain the Hawaiian govern- 
ment practically allied itself with the United States, 
by offering to the latter the use of its ports 
regardless of the neutrahty laws, and this gener- 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 259 

oiis action incited Congress to perform its neglected 
duty. 

The annexation resolution was passed on July 6, 
and promptly signed by the President, and on Au- 
gust 12 the official transfer of sovereignty was 
made and the American flag was raised over the 
islands in token of their finally having become a 
part of the American domain. 

President Dole and the other members of the 
Hawaiian government were continued in office, and 
their administration of affairs went on much the 
same as before, until Congress enacted special laws 
for the government of the territory. This was done 
in April, 1900. Under the bill then enacted Hawaii 
became an organized territory of the United States, 
the citizens of which are citizens of the United 
States. The Constitution of the United States is 
fully applied to Hawaii, and also all United States 
laws not locally inapplicable or otherwise provided 
for. The territory has a governor appointed by 
the President, and an elective legislature, and 
sends to Congress a delegate who may speak in 
the House but has no vote. In brief, the status of 
this insular territory closely resembles that of the 
territories on the continent and contiguous to the 
states. There is, however, no promise of state- 
hood, but on the contrary the sentiment of the 
United States, amounting practically, it is to be 
hoped, to an unwritten law, is that neither Hawaii 
nor any other insular possession of the United 



260 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

States is to be considered as in the line of promo- 
tion to that status. 

It would indeed be profitable if such a deter- 
mination to keep the United States forever a com- 
pact, continental Republic should become crystal- 
lized into immutable law. The Hawaiian annexa- 
tion gave adequate occasion for it. Twice at least, 
as we have seen, the United States hesitated and 
declined to accept the cession of those islands for 
the sole reason that there was connected with the 
offer of cession an implication that statehood would 
be expected. In the final act of annexation all en- 
couragement of such expectation was carefully and 
avowedly avoided. That wise policy should be 
forever maintained. If so, the Hawaiian annexa- 
tion will not prove unfruitful of at least one impor- 
tant and beneficent constitutional principle — the 
ability and right of this nation to acquire and to hold 
colonies, never intended for statehood, at any dis- 
tance and in any part of the world. That is a power 
which all other important nations possess and exer- 
cise at will, and in that, as well as in all other 
respects, the United States must be the peer of 
any other nation. 

Our possessions in the Samoan Islands may 
properly have notice here, though entirely separate 
from Hawaii. Those islands are much more remote 
than Hawaii from our Pacific coast, and much less 
important in all respects. Nevertheless they con- 
tain at Pago Pago one of the finest harbors in that 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 26 1 

quarter of the globe, and a harbor which will one 
day be of very great value to its possessor if the 
latter is to be a commercial power in the Pacific. 
The United States was the first of all powers to 
obtain an important commercial footing in Samoa, 
but was followed closely by Great Britain and Ger- 
many. In 1878 this country secured a cession of 
the harbor of Pago Pago, whereupon Great Britain 
and Germany also demanded and secured conces- 
sions for themselves. The rivalry among the three 
powers steadily increased, and each sought to gain 
advantage over the others by ingratiating itself 
with the native rulers. In 1888 a serious conflict 
arose among the natives over the election of a new 
king, and this led Prince Bismarck to invite Great 
Britain and the United States to a conference at 
Berlin to devise a plan for the control of the 
islands. The result was a tripartite system which 
nominally gave the three powers equal privileges 
and authority in the islands, and which practically 
was a fruitful source of rivalries, bickerings, and 
intrigues. The independence of the native sov- 
ereign was nominally maintained, but the judicial 
and customs services of the islands were placed in 
the hands of the three powers. 

This system lasted until 1898, when another 
dispute over the royal succession arose, in which 
Germany espoused the cause of one claimant 
and Great Britain and the United States that of 
the other. There was much fighting among the 



262 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

natives, and some firing upon them by the war- 
ships of the three powers, and relations among 
the latter became strained. Germany proposed the 
abolition of the tripartite arrangement and the con- 
trol of the islands by a single power, meaning her- 
self. To this the others would not consent, though 
all were agreed that the tripartite arrangement was 
unsatisfactory. Finally, in November, 1899, the 
matter was settled by a partition of the islands. 
The United States received the island of Tutuila, 
containing the harbor of Pago Pago, which was 
really all she ever wanted in Samoa. Germany 
received the two larger islands of Savaii and 
Upolu. Great Britain withdrew from the group 
altogether, receiving compensation from Germany 
in the form of cessions in the Tonga and Solomon 
islands and enlarged privileges in Africa. Since 
that time this remote possession of the United 
States has been governed by a naval officer desig- 
nated for the purpose. There is, of course, no 
thought of anything even remotely resembling the 
status of an organized territory. The island and 
its tributary islets are governed arbitrarily, in a 
manner corresponding to that of a crown colony 
of a monarchical power. Its status is simply a 
further application and exemplification of the 
constitutional provision that " Congress shall have 
power to make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the territory belonging to the United 
States." In some cases Congress enacts that terri- 



MID-SEA POSSESSIONS 263 

tories shall be largely autonomous, with highly 
organized representative governments. In this 
case it puts the government of the territory into 
the hands of a single officer of the navy. In each 
case its action is entirely constitutional. / 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SPANISH ISLANDS 

The history of our latest territorial acquisition 
dates back three-quarters of a century before their 
actual accomplishment. It was in 1898 that the 
United States took possession of Porto Rico and 
the Phihppines. It was in 1823 that the principle 
which led to such annexation was formally and 
authoritatively laid down. John Quincy Adams 
was its author — that genius of statesmanship to 
whom this nation owes so many debts for terri- 
torial gains and for dignified standing among the 
powers of the earth. In 1823 he was Secretary 
of State. A war between France and Spain was 
impending, which threatened to involve American 
as well as European interests. Ever keenly re- 
gardful of perils which might beset this country 
and of opportunities for its advantage, Mr. Adams 
wrote to the United States Minister at Madrid as 
follows : — 

" Whatever may be the issue of this war, it may 
be taken for granted that the dominion of Spain 
upon the American continents, north and south, 

264 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 265 

is irrevocably gone. But the islands of Cuba and 
Porto Rico still remain nominally, and so far really, 
dependent upon her, that she yet possesses the 
power of transferring her own dominion over 
them, together with the possession of them, to 
others. These islands are natural appendages to 
the North American continent, and one of them, 
almost in sight of our shores, from a multitude of 
considerations has become an object of transcen- 
dent importance to the commercial and political 
interests of our Union. Its commanding position 
with reference to the Gulf of Mexico and the West 
Indian seas, its situation midway between our 
southern coast and the island of San Domingo, 
its safe and capacious harbor of the Havana, front- 
ing a long line of our shores destitute of the same 
advantages, the nature of its productions and of its 
wants, furnishing the supplies and needing the 
returns of a commerce immensely profitable and 
mutually beneficial, give it an importance in the 
sum of our national interests with which that of 
no other foreign territory can be compared, and 
little inferior to that which binds the different 
members of this Union together. Such indeed 
are, between the interests of that island and of 
this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, 
and political relations formed by nature, gathering 
in the process of time, and even now verging to 
maturity, that in looking forward to the probable 
course of events for the short period of half a 



266 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

century, it is scarcely possible to resist the con- 
] viction that the annexation of Cuba to our Federal 
Republic will be indispensable to the continuance 
and integrity of the Union itself. . . . There are 
laws of political as well as of physical gravitation. 
And if an apple, severed by the tempest from its 
native tree, cannot choose but to fall to the ground, 
Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural 
connection with Spain, and incapable of self-sup- 
port, can gravitate only toward the North Ameri- 
can Union, which, by the same law of nature, 
cannot cast her off from her bosom. The trans- 
fer of Cuba to Great Britain would be an event 
unpropitious to the interests of this Union. . . . 
The question both of our right and of our power 
to prevent it, if necessary, by force, already ob- 
trudes itself upon our councils, and the Adminis- 
tration is called upon, in the performance of its 
duties to the nation, at least to use all the means 
within its competency to guard against and fore- 
fend it." 

That was a brave, straightforward declaration 
of principle and policy, namely, that these islands 
must not be transferred by Spain to any other 
power, but, when severed from Spain, must come 
to the United States. Jefferson evidently cherished 
the same view, though his expression of it was 
marked with his characteristic timidity and incon- 
sistency. Writing to President Monroe a few 
weeks later in that same year, he said : — 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 26/ 

" Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck 
of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain 
would indeed be a great calamity to us. Could we 
induce her to join us in guaranteeing its indepen- 
dence against all the world, except Spain, it would 
be nearly as valuable as if it were our own. But 
should she take it, I would not immediately go to 
war for it ; because the first war on other accounts 
will give it to us, or the island will give herself to 
us when able to do so." 

Strange doctrine, that of a joint guarantee, to be 
put forward by the man who had so austerely 
deprecated " entangling alliances " ! 

Two years later Henry Clay, then Secretary of 
State in Adams's Cabinet, instructed the American 
ministers at the chief European capitals to make 
known that " the United States, for themselves, 
desired no change in the political condition of 
Cuba; that they were satisfied that it should 
remain open, as it is now, to their commerce, and 
that they could not with indifference see it passing 
from Spain to any other European power." A 
little later he added, " We could not consent to the 
occupation of those islands (Cuba and Porto Rico) 
by any other European power than Spain, under 
any contingency whatever." 

In this same year, 1825, the British government 
proposed that France and the United States should 
join it in a tripartite declaration that the wresting 
of Cuba from Spain would not be permitted. This 



268 A CENTUR Y OF EXPANSION 

scheme was similar to that desired by Jefferson. 
Happily, wiser counsels prevailed at Washington, 
and the United States did not accept the proposal, 
but later it refused to enter into any joint arrange- 
ment with any power concerning Cuba, holding that 
Spain and the United States alone were essentially 
interested in the disposition of that island. 

Adams's policy was consistently maintained by 
the United States, through successive administra- 
tions and in many varied circumstances. Nor did 
this country shrink from the responsibility which 
that policy morally implied. While it forbade 
Spain to transfer the islands to any other power, 
it did not hesitate to guarantee her in the secure 
possession of them. The Secretary of State, Mr. 
Forsyth, in 1840 instructed the American Minister 
at Madrid " to assure the Spanish government that 
in case of any attempt, from whatever quarter, to 
wrest from her this portion of her territory, she 
may securely depend upon the military and naval 
resources of the United States to aid her either in 
preserving or recovering it." Practically, the 
United States thus established and effectively 
maintained a protectorate over Cuba and Porto 
Rico in behalf of Spain, and there can be no doubt 
that, had it not done so, those islands would before 
the middle of the last century have been seized by 
either France or Great Britain. 

The assumption of such power and responsibility, 
however, imposed yet another responsibility upon 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 269 

the United States. That was, a moral responsi- 
biUty for Spain's government of Cuba. From that 
there was no escape. Since we protected and 
maintained Spain in possession of Cuba, we were 
responsible for her possession of it and for the use 
she made of that possession. When the results of 
that possession became so evil as to constitute an 
international scandal, we were responsible. Other 
nations would have intervened to correct the offen- 
sive condition, but we would not permit them to 
do so. That was the responsibility borne by the 
United States, which finally gave to this nation the 
moral authority to remonstrate with Spain against 
her misgovernment of Cuba, and, when remon- 
strance proved ineffective, to intervene with force 
and arms. 

The United States was patient. During the 
Ten Years' War in Cuba, from 1868 to 1878, it 
endured almost intolerable provocation and injury. 
In 1895 another revolution broke out in Cuba, and 
an independent Cuban Repubhc was proclaimed. 
The United States maintained an attitude of 
scrupulous neutrality. Nevertheless its citizens 
were grossly ill treated by Spanish authorities in 
Cuba, its commerce with that island was all but 
destroyed, it was put to great expense in the pre- 
vention of filibustering, and finally, in February, 
1898, its warship Maine, lying in the harbor of 
Havana on a peaceful and friendly errand, was 
treacherously blown up and destroyed, and nearly 



270 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

three hundred of its officers and crew were killed. 
Meantime the war in Cuba was marked on both sides 
with savage atrocities. The Spanish Governor-Gen- 
eral proclaimed what was practically a policy of 
extermination, and actually began starving to death 
the women and children and other non-combatants 
of Cuba by scores of thousands. " It was," said 
President McKinley, " not civilized warfare. It 
was extermination. The only peace it could beget 
was that of the wilderness and the grave." 

There were diplomatic negotiations, long and 
patient, but fruitless. The Spanish government 
offered a so-called " home rule system " to Cuba. 
It was, however, of the most illusory character, and 
was scornfully rejected by the revolutionists. In- 
tervention by the United States therefore became 
inevitable. This ultimate necessity had long been 
patent. President Cleveland had already recog- 
nized it. In his annual message to Congress in 
the fall of 1896, he had said : — 

" When the inabihty of Spain to deal success- 
fully with the insurrection has become manifest, 
and it is demonstrated that her sovereignty in 
Cuba is extinct for all purposes of its rightful exist- 
ence, and when a hopeless struggle for its rees- 
tablishment has degenerated into a strife which 
means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of 
human life and the utter destruction of the very 
subject-matter of the conflict, a situation will be 
presented to which our obligations to the sover- 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 2/1 

eignty of Spain will be superseded by higher obli- 
gations which we can hardly hesitate to recognize 
and discharge." 

President McKinley, in his first message to Con- 
gress in the fall of 1897, had also said : — 

" The near future will demonstrate whether the 
indispensable conditions of a righteous peace, just 
alike to the Cubans and to Spain, as well as equi- 
table to all our interests so intimately involved in 
the welfare of Cuba, is likely to be attained. If 
not, the exigency of further and other action by 
the United States will remain to be taken. When 
that time comes, that action will be determined in 
the line of indisputable right and duty. ... If it 
shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by our 
obligations to ourselves, to civilization, and to hu-' 
manity to intervene with force, it shall be without 
fault on our part, and only because the necessity 
for such action will be so clear as to command 
the support and approval of the civilized world." 

The situation anticipated by President Cleveland 
in December, 1896, and the time and necessity 
foreseen by President McKinley in December, 
1897, were realized in April, 1898. In a special 
message to Congress at that latter time. President 
McKinley truly said : — 

" The long trial has proved that the object for 
which Spain had waged the war cannot be at- 
tained. The only hope of relief and repose from 
a condition which can no lono"er be endured is the 



272 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of 
humanity, in the name of civiHzation, in behalf of 
endangered American interests which gave us the 
right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in 
Cuba must stop. In view of these facts and of 
these considerations I ask the Congress to author- 
ize and empower the President to take measures 
to secure a full and final termination of hos- 
tiHties between the government of Spain and the 
people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the 
estabUshment of a stable government capable of 
maintaining order and observing its international 
obligations, insuring peace and tranquillity and the 
security of its citizens as well as our own, and to 
use the military and naval forces of the United 
'States as may be necessary for these purposes." 
These were the grounds of intervention. The 
first was that of humanity. The President spoke 
of the " barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and hor- 
rible miseries " prevaihng in Cuba. There was no 
question that they did prevail, to even a greater ex- 
tent than he indicated. A state of affairs existed 
the horror of which could not easily be exaggerated. 
It did not matter who were responsible for it, the 
Spaniards or the Cubans. Probably both were in 
some measure responsible. What did matter was 
that neither Spaniards nor Cubans were willing or 
able to end it. Neither could conquer the other, 
and neither would propose a settlement which the 
other would accept. If that reign of horror was 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 2/3 

to be ended, therefore, it must be by intervention, 
and as the United States would not let any other 
nation interfere, the intervention must be per- 
formed by the United States itself. That was the 
inexorable logic of the situation. To ignore it, to 
decline to undertake the responsibility, and to re- 
gard the state of Cuba as something with which 
we had no concern, would have been to place this 
country outside the pale of humanity. 

The second and third grounds were the necessity 
of protecting American citizens in Cuba, in their 
lives, their property and their business. That ne- 
cessity was urgent. The lives of some Americans 
had been lost and of many others menaced, while 
millions of dollars in American property and 
American commerce had been destroyed. The 
treaty rights of Americans in Cuba had for years 
been flagrantly ignored and violated. It was neces- 
sary to vindicate them. It was intolerable that 
Americans should be barred out of Cuba and that 
island be transformed into a savage country, closed 
against the commerce and intercourse of the world. 

The fourth ground practically involved the self- 
preservation of the United States itself. The 
periodical wars in Cuba had entailed upon this 
government vast expenses, had caused it much 
irritation and anxiety, and had menaced its peace 
and integrity in the gravest manner. It was intol- 
erable that this country should be compelled to 
keep its navy on a war footing year after year on 



274 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

account of interminable insurrections in Cuba, and 
that this nation should be made a party to inces- 
sant bickerings and threatenings. The United 
States had the same objection to insurrections in 
Cuba that a householder would have to incendia- 
rism in the house next door to his. If its neighbors 
would not refrain from menacing its jDeace and se- 
curity, it would be amply justified in expelling them 
from the property which they so abominably ill- 
used. Our appeal was once more to " the immu- 
table principle of self-defence " which had been 
invoked against Spain in Florida many years 
before. 

Congress soon granted to the President the 
authority for which he had asked. In the early 
morning of April 19, 1898, the two houses adopted 
a joint resolution, providing for " the recognition of 
the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding 
that the government of Spain relinquish its author- 
ity and government in the island of Cuba and 
withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and 
Cuban waters, and directing the President of the 
United States to use the land and naval forces of the 
United States to carry these resolutions into effect." 
The fourth and last of the resolutions was a super- 
fluous tying of American hands in advance. It 
declared " That the United States hereby disclaims 
any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, 
jurisdiction or control over said island, except for 
the pacification thereof, and asserts its determina- 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 275 

tion, when that is accompHshed, to leave the govern- 
ment and control of the island to its people." Spain 
immediately regarded this action of Congress as a 
declaration of war, and accordingly herself began 
war against the United States. The result was that 
in a few months she was completely vanquished 
and was compelled to sue for peace. 

The fourth of the resolutions of intervention, 
which we have just quoted, removes Cuba from 
the scope of this story of our territorial acquisitions. 
That resolution, though regarded by many as ill- 
advised and mischievous, was scrupulously fulfilled. 
After the expulsion of Spanish authority from 
Cuba, the United States established a temporary 
military governorship over the island, until the 
people had sufficiently recovered from the prostra- 
tion and demoralization of the war to adopt a con- 
stitution and organize a government of their own. 
Thereupon the United States did promptly with- 
draw and " leave the government and control of 
the island to its people." 

To turn back, however, to the war of 1898, it is 
to be observed that although that war was pro- 
voked by the state of Cuba and was fought pri- 
marily over that island, it involved much more than 
Cuba. When two nations are at war, they are at 
war at all points. They strike at each other wher- 
ever they have opportunity. Their entire domains 
are at least potentially implicated in the scene of 
action. It was therefore inevitable that the United 



276 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

States should invade Porto Rico as well as Cuba. 
It did so, with ease and with success. The Spanish 
garrison in Porto Rico was insignificant, and the 
people of the island, long weary of Spanish rule, 
welcomed the coming of the American forces. 
The invasion and occupation of that island was 
thus little more than a holiday excursion. 

Nor was that all. Spain had insular possessions 
of great extent at the other side of the world, in the 
Philippine archipelago. There had recently been 
an insurrection against her in those islands, but 
it had been suppressed, and her authority was at 
the time unchallenged. Spain had, moreover, at 
Manila a numerous fleet of warships, of unknown 
strength, with which she menaced our extensive 
commerce in Asian waters, and even threatened a 
descent upon our unprotected Pacific Coast. It 
was afterward found that this fleet was contempt- 
ibly weak, and would have been incapable of giv- 
ing the United States any serious trouble. Indeed, 
it is probable that it would never have ventured 
to leave the harbor of Manila. Nevertheless, its 
potency and its intentions were unknown to the 
United States, and it was therefore essential to 
guard against possible action by it, by capturing 
or destroying it. There was also another reason 
for proceeding against the Spanish fleet and against 
Manila. The United States had at that time a 
small but efficient squadron at Hong Kong. But 
as soon as war was declared it had to depart from 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 2/7 

that port, under the neutrality law, or else remain 
bottled up there until the war was over. The 
latter course was not to be thought of. It would 
have been treason against the nation. So the 
fleet had to leave Hong Kong. But what then } 
Under the neutrality law it could not return thither, 
and there was no American port or coaling-station 
in those waters to which it could repair. It would 
therefore have to hasten home across the ocean, 
leaving our commerce in Asia at Spain's mercy, 
or else go in and conquer a port and coaling-station 
for itself in the territory of the power with which 
we were at war. 

The latter course was promptly and properly 
decided upon. Any other, indeed, would have 
been absurd. As soon as the war began. Commo- 
dore, afterward Admiral, Dewey was instructed to 
proceed to Manila, and capture or destroy the 
Spanish fleet, and take possession of that harbor 
and city. He did so. Arriving at Manila on the 
night of April 30, he steamed into the harbor 
under cover of darkness, regardless of the danger 
of torpedoes in the channel or attacks from shore 
batteries. On the following morning, May i, he 
attacked the Spanish fleet and quickly reduced 
its inferior and all but helpless' vessels to wreckage, 
with appalling loss of life to the Spaniards, but 
practically no injury whatever to the American 
fleet. The capitulation of the city and the surren- 
der of Spanish sovereignty swiftly and inevitably 



2/8 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

followed. Dewey had not a sufficient landing force 
to take possession of the city and the islands, so 
there was nothing for him to do but to remain on 
guard in the harbor with his fleet until an army of 
occupation could be sent from the United States, 
which was done as promptly as possible. Such 
occupation was, of course, necessary. The United 
States had stricken down Spanish authority in the 
Philippines, and by the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet had rendered the restoration of that authority 
impossible. Having deprived the islands of their 
only government, it must either itself provide them 
with another government, or leave them to anarchy 
or to be the prey of any power that might covet 
them. The latter course would have been worthy 
only of a pirate. The former was imperatively 
dictated by every sentiment of honor and of moral- 
ity. Whatever might be the final disposition of 
the Philippines, the United States was under a 
compulsion which could not be escaped of assuming 
the responsibility of its act by taking upon itself 
the government of the islands. 

Thus matters stood when Spain became con- 
vinced of the hopelessness of prolonging the 
struggle and sued for peace. Through the benevo- 
lent mediation of the French government a proto- 
col was signed on August 12, 1898, estabHshing an 
armistice and providing for the negotiation of a 
permanent treaty of peace. This protocol, made 
by the French Ambassador at Washington, M. 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 279 

Cambon, in behalf of Spain, set forth that Spain 
would relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and 
title to Cuba, and would cede to the United States 
Porto Rico and all other Spanish islands in the 
West Indies and also an island in the Ladrones to 
be selected by the United States, and that the 
United States should " occupy and hold the city, 
bay and harbor of Manila, pending the conclusion 
of a treaty of peace " which should " determine the 
control, disposition and government of the Phihp- 
pines." The protocol was adopted by the Spanish 
Senate on September 10, and was signed by the 
queen regent of Spain on September 11. 

Such were the preliminary bases of peace. The 
Spanish government forthwith designated five of its 
foremost statesmen and ablest diplomats to conduct 
the final peace negotiations, and the President of the 
United States appointed five Commissioners to 
meet them. The five Americans, in the order of 
their appointment, were William R. Day, who had 
been Secretary of State during the war ; Cushman 
K. Davis, Senator from Minnesota and Chairman 
of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate ; 
William P. Frye, Senator from Maine and Presi- 
dent pro tempore of the Senate ; Whitelaw Reid, 
editor of The Nezv York Tribune and formerly Min- 
ister to France and Special Ambassador to Great 
Britain ; and George Gray, Senator from Delaware 
and a member of the Joint High Commission for 
the settlement of disputes with Canada. The 



280 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

negotiations were conducted in the famous Salon 
des Conferences, of the Foreign Office, in Paris, 
beginning on October i. 

The first three weeks and more were devoted to 
Cuba. Spain was bound by the protocol to re- 
linquish all her title to that island, and her Com- 
missioners made no effort to escape that obligation. 
They strove, however, to induce the American 
Commissioners to agree to assumption of sov- 
ereignty over Cuba and responsibility for Cuba's 
debts and conduct by the United States. To this 
the American Commissioners would not agree. 
They could not do so, consistently with the ex- 
press declaration in the act of intervention, which 
bound the United States to leave Cuba, after 
freeing and pacifying it, to the control of its own 
people. By October i8 the Spanish Commis- 
sioners became convinced of the futility of further 
endeavors in that direction, and accordingly aban- 
doned them. For the next nine days they strove 
to fix upon Cuba responsibility for a so-called 
Cuban debt of more than 1^350,000,000, the bonds 
for which were secured by the revenue from the 
Cuban custom houses. The American Commis- 
sioners replied that that debt had not been con- 
tracted by Cuba, or for Cuba's benefit, but by 
Spain for her own benefit and to pay the costs 
of her efforts to subjugate Cuba, and that it was 
not properly to be charged against Cuba ; while, 
as to the alleged security, it proved to be upon 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 28 1 

property to which the Spanish title was not good. 
Upon this point, too, the Spaniards were iinally, on 
October 27, compelled to yield, and they then 
agreed to the first article of the permanent treaty, 
which declared that Spain relinquished all claim 
of sovereignty over and title to Cuba, and that the 
United States assumed responsibility for the dis- 
charge of the obligations of international law in 
Cuba only so long as American occupation of the 
island should last after the Spanish evacuation. 
The cession of Porto Rico and the adjacent islets, 
and of the island of Guam, in the Ladrones, was 
promptly arranged, with little difficulty. 

Then came the crux of the whole negotiations, 
the disposition of the Philippines. Upon this point 
American counsels had not at first been united. 
When Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet and 
captured Manila, there were those who promptly 
declared that all the Philippines must be ours. 
There were others who thought the retention of 
one or two islands of the group, or a few coaling 
and naval stations, would suffice. Still others 
thought we should retire from them altogether. It 
will be observed that the American government 
was so far from determination of this question that 
it left the matter entirely open in the protocol, to 
be dealt with in the later peace negotiations. The 
President in giving his instructions to the American 
Peace Commissioners before their departure for 
Paris also left the question largely open. The 



282 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION- 

Commissioners themselves were at first divided in 
opinion. Two of them, Messrs. Day and Gray, 
were opposed to annexation of the Philippines, in 
whole or in part, and favored entire withdrawal 
from those islands. Two of them, Messrs. Frye 
and Davis, were opposed to entire withdrawal (the 
former, perhaps, at the outset the more positively) 
but might have been content with a part of the 
archipelago — Mr. Davis possibly with the single 
island of Luzon, which would have afforded the 
United States an ample naval station and commer- 
cial foothold, but more probably with all excepting 
the Mohammedan portion of the archipelago. The 
fifth Commissioner, Mr. Reid, was from the outset 
unhesitatingly and resolutely in favor of the annex- 
ation of the entire archipelago. The situation was 
not unhke that at Paris in 1783, with the exception 
that these later Commissioners were not bound by 
embarrassing instructions. It will be recalled that 
in the bold movement which led to the making of 
that earlier treaty and secured for us the eastern 
half of the Mississippi Valley, John Jay was the 
intrepid and resolute leader, and that he was cor- 
dially followed by Adams, and somewhat hesitat- 
ingly but loyally followed by Franklin. So before 
reaching Paris, in 1898, Whitelaw Reid took the 
determined initiative in insisting upon the cession 
of the Philippines. He was soon followed cordially 
by Messrs. Frye and Davis, and reluctantly but 
loyally, in the end, by Messrs. Day and Gray. 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 283 

In coming to this vindication of Mr. Reid's 
original policy, the Commissioners were largely 
directed by the results of an investigation which 
they held, concurrently with the peace negotia- 
tions, into the character and condition of the 
Philippines and the general situation of affairs 
there. In this they were materially aided by the 
testimony of General Merritt, of the United States 
Army, who had just come to Paris from Manila, 
and of other competent and expert authorities, and 
the result was that they finally came to these con- 
clusions : That the islands were exceedingly valu- 
able and thus well worth acquiring ; that the great 
majority of the intelligent and substantial people 
were in favor of the establishment of American 
sovereignty ; that the islands were quite incapable 
of sustaining a decent and stable independent 
government of their own, but if abandoned by 
America would fall into anarchy ; that divided 
ownership of the group would mean incessant 
friction and danger of serious embroilments ; and 
that therefore the just and reasonable course was 
for the United States to assume sovereignty over 
the whole archipelago. 

All considerations, indeed, emphatically pointed 
to this conclusion. The United States had stricken 
down the Spanish authority in the islands and had 
destroyed the fleet which was Spain's chief means 
of exercising authority. Thus it had deprived the 
islands of their only legitimate government. It 



284 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

was under a moral compulsion from which there 
could be no escape to give the islands in return 
another government, at least as good as the one 
of which it had deprived them. There were open 
six conceivable courses. One was for the United 
States, after having deprived the islands of their 
only government, to scuttle away and leave them 
to anarchy. That would have been the act of a 
pirate. The second was, to restore the islands to 
Spain and reestablish Spanish authority over them. 
That would have been self-stultification. For the 
United States had gone to war with Spain for the 
freeing of one Spanish island from Spanish mis- 
government, and it could not consistently force 
back other islands under that same misgovern- 
ment. The third was, for the United States to 
turn the islands over to some other power. Ger- 
many was believed to covet them, and there were 
several other European powers which would have 
been glad to get them and to have paid us well 
for them. Such a disposition of them would have 
savored too much of the old slave trade, when men 
went hunting for their fellow-men, to capture them 
and then sell them in the market-place. The 
United States went out of that business many 
years ago, and had no mind to resume it in 1898, 
The fourth course, to take only one of the islands 
and let some one else have the rest, was open to 
the same objection as the preceding, and to this 
additional one, that such proximity to aUen pos- 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 285 

sessions would be a constant source of menace to 
our peace. The fifth course was to leave the 
islands to self-government, as was to be done with 
Cuba. But the weight of evidence before the 
Commissioners was that the people of the islands 
were incapable of self-government, and did not 
desire it, but wanted to be under the sovereignty 
of the United States. There had been no general 
attempt to found an independent insular govern- 
ment there, as in Cuba. There had been some 
tribal outbreaks, but the islands were divided 
among many tribes, some of which were impla- 
cably hostile to others, and abandonment to self- 
government would be sure to result in inter-tribal 
wars and general anarchy. There remained, then, 
only one other course. That was for the United 
States to establish its sovereignty over all the 
islands and assume responsibility for them ; mak- 
ing, however, no pledges, but keeping a perfectly 
free hand, to deal with them as the exigencies of 
time and the progress of events might require. 

Upon this course, which was unreservedly advo- 
cated at first by only one of their number, all the 
American Commissioners were at length agreed, 
and the government at Washington added its sanc- 
tion. The Spanish Commissioners, however, at first 
flatly refused to consent to it. They declared that 
no such surrender of the Philippines by Spain had 
ever been contemplated. The French Ambassador, 
acting for Spain, had been expressly instructed 



286 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

they said, to reserve Spanish sovereignty over the 
islands before signing the protocol, and the United 
States government had made no objection thereto. 
And they denied that the seizure of Manila had 
given the United States any ultimate rights in the 
Philippines, save by the consent of Spain and upon 
terms satisfactory to her. 

In these latter contentions the Spanish Commis- 
sioners were certainly in error. The terms of the 
protocol gave no hint of reservation of Spanish 
sovereignty, nor was there any understanding what- 
ever to that effect on the part of the government 
at Washington. The Spanish government, through 
M. Cambon, did indeed try, on August 7, to have 
Spanish sovereignty over the Philippines reserved, 
but the United States government declined to 
accede to the proposal, thus unmistakably indicat- 
ing that that matter must be left, as the protocol 
declared, to be settled in the final peace negotia- 
tions. As to the question of American rights in 
the Philippines, the American Commissioners held, 
and of course properly, that the right based on 
conquest was primary and fundamental ; and if it 
needed reenforcement through treaty cessions, the 
treaty was to be dictated by the conquering power. 
The soundness of that contention, in international 
law, was beyond dispute. As a final resort the 
Spanish Commissioners proposed to submit the 
interpretation of the protocol, upon that point, to 
arbitration, but the Americans properly refused, on 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 287 

the ground that arbitration should come before 
war, to avert its horrors, and not afterward, to 
enable the beaten party to escape its consequences. 
Finally, on November 21, the American Commis- 
sioners presented what was practically an ultimatum. 
This was to the effect that Spain should cede all the 
PhiHppines to the United States, and that the United 
States should pay to Spain the sum of $20,000,000, 
not as purchase price for the islands but as remu- 
neration for betterments bestowed upon the islands 
by Spain, and that for ten years after the treaty Span- 
ish ships and merchandise should be admitted to the 
islands on the same terms as American ships and 
merchandise. The Americans also proposed to 
insert into the treaty a provision for the mutual 
relinquishment by America and Spain of all claims 
against each other for public or private indemnity 
for damages arising from the insurrection in Cuba. 
The Spanish Commissioners remonstrated against 
what they termed the harshness of these demands, 
but finally acquiesced. The treaty was completed 
on the hues indicated, and was signed on Decem- 
ber 10. The American Commissioners returned 
home, and on December 24 placed the treaty in 
the hands of the President, who transmitted it to 
the Senate for ratification on January 4, 1899. 
After much dehberation the Senate ratified it on 
February 6. The President signed it on February 
10. The queen regent of Spain signed it on 
March 17. Finally, on April i r, the ratifications 



288 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

were exchanged at the White House in Washington 
and the President made proclamation of the fact to 
the nation. 

Thus was effected this latest, and by no means 
least, act of American territorial expansion. It re- 
mains to observe its chief constitutional and diplo- 
matic effects. These were and are of marked 
importance, though scarcely as novel and as epoch- 
making as those of the earlier annexations. 

Cuba was, as already indicated, not annexed to 
the United States. The self-denying clause gratu- 
itously attached to the act of intervention was lit- 
erally obeyed by this country. This was a cause 
of widespread regret. There were many in Cuba, 
including the most substantial elements of the 
population, who regarded the island's ultimate 
annexation to the United States as inevitable, and 
who thought it would be best to have that act 
performed at once, as a safeguard to tranquillity 
and a guarantee of the security of life and prop- 
erty. The close of the war with Spain was 
regarded by them as an auspicious time for a per- 
manent settlement. Some of these thought that 
Cuba should be admitted to the Union as a state, 
or perhaps as two states. Others would have 
been content with a territorial or colonial status. 

In the United States there were many who held 
similar opinions, which indeed had been held by 
many ever since the idea of Cuban annexation was 
first put forward by John Quincy Adams. The 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 289 

United States had exercised a virtual protectorate 
over Cuba for three-quarters of a century. It had 
fought a costly foreign war over that island. Cer- 
tainly it seemed only just and reasonable that it 
should dispose of or appropriate the island as it 
pleased. It seemed quixotic to wage a war and 
then, instead of garnering them, to leave the results 
uncared for, with a possibihty that in a few years 
the whole work would have to be done over again. 
To them the advance renunciation of Cuba seemed 
an act of folly. Whether we wanted the island or 
not, it was not wise thus to tie our hands in ad- 
vance. The question of what to do with Cuba 
should have been left for decision after we had 
wrested it from Spain. It was even held by many 
that that fatuous act of Congress should not have 
been regarded as binding, and that it might well 
have been overruled and annulled by the war-mak- 
ing and treaty-making powers of the government. 

The annexationists were, however, divided in 
opinion as to the status of Cuba after annexation. 
There were some who thought they saw in Cuba 
the possibility of two fine new states, and they 
would have admitted the island to the Union as 
such. Others, however, deprecated such a course. 
They were not dazzled by the mere prospect of 
adding two new stars to the flag and two more 
names to the roll of states. They realized that 
the people of Cuba were chiefly aliens, in institu- 
tions and political ideas and practices as well as in 



290 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

race and speech, and therefore were not fitted for 
citizenship in this Union. Moreover, the question 
of the poHtical and social status of tlie negro, 
already enormously troublesome in the United 
States, would be aggravated by the annexation of 
Cuba with its large negro population and its radi- 
cally different way of looking at the negro ques- 
tion. Again, it was held to be an inauspicious 
thing to extend the Constitutional Union of States 
beyond the limits of the North American conti- 
nent. If one island were admitted to the Union, 
others might seek the same privilege, and it would 
be increasingly difficult to deny them. The result 
might be that in time the balance of power in the 
United States would be held by remote insular 
states, and alien peoples in the isles of the sea 
would become the rulers of America. To guard 
against the possibility of such complications, and 
to avoid all embarrassment, it was held by many of 
the most judicious thinkers, including some of the 
most earnest annexationists, that Cuba should be 
acquired only as a territory, or a dependency. The 
same principle should be maintained toward it that 
had already been implied in the case of Hawaii. 
The United States, no matter what outlying terri- 
tories it might own, should forever remain a com- 
pact continental Union, 

This latter view was undoubtedly the sound and 
patriotic one. It might or might not have been 
acceptable to the people of Cuba, though doubt- 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 29 1 

less a large part of them would have been well 
satisfied with such a status. It does not appear, 
however, that the sentiment of the Cubans should 
necessarily have been absolutely conclusive upon 
the matter. It had not been the policy or practice 
of the United States to base its act of annexation 
upon a plebiscitum of the people whom it pro- 
posed to annex. Jefferson, the author of that fine 
'* gUttering generality " about " consent of the 
governed," never dreamed of inquiring whether 
the people of Louisiana wanted to be annexed to 
the United States, or on what terms. His policy 
was that the territory should be annexed, whether 
the people in it Hked it or not. The same was 
true in the cases of Florida, and California, and 
Alaska. Indeed, the only case on record in which 
the United States sought a favorable plebiscitum 
before annexing a country was that of the Danish 
West Indies, and in that case, after the people of 
the islands had voted all but unanimously in favor 
of annexation, the United States declined to annex 
them ! 

However, there were also many in both coun- 
tries who were sincerely opposed to annexation 
in any form, at least at that time. Some Cubans 
wanted to enjoy the independence for which they 
had so long contended, and were convinced that 
it would be possible to maintain an independent 
Cuba in peace and prosperity. Some Americans, 
too, preferred to avoid as long as possible the 



292 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

difificulties and embarrassments which they re- 
garded as inseparable from any form of annexa- 
tion. There were also many who held that the 
renunciatory act of Congress, whether well or ill 
advised, was inexorably binding upon the United 
States and must, at whatever cost, be fulfilled. 
This view finally prevailed, and that act was ful- 
filled. From the summer of 1898 to the spring 
of 1902 the United States occupied and adminis- 
tered Cuba, under a military governorship. In 
that time it largely rehabilitated the island from 
the ravages of war. Schools, sanitation, roads, and 
other public works, neglected by Spain, were 
created and promoted, and the island was pre- 
pared to enter upon its career as an independent 
state. In the latter part of 1901 and the early 
part of 1902 an insular constitution was adopted 
and a republican government organized, and on 
May 20, 1902, the United States withdrew from 
the island and left its government and control to 
its own people. 

In that, however, it is to be observed, the 
United States did not repudiate nor abandon the 
pohcy which it had consistently maintained toward 
Cuba for three-quarters of a century. We have 
seen that since the days of John Quincy Adams 
this country had exercised something like a pro- 
tectorate over Cuba, while that island was a Span- 
ish colony. The same quasi-protectorate was 
continued after American withdrawal from Cuba 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 293 

in 1902, and is still maintained. At the instance 
of the United States the Cubans added to their 
constitution an amendment, practically guarantee- 
ing the non-alienation of the island, or any part of 
it, to any other power than the United States, and 
granting to the United States the exclusive treaty 
right of establishing naval stations upon the shores 
of Cuba. A certain American supervision over the 
finances and sanitation of the island was also pro- 
vided for. In this the permanent supremacy 
of American influence in Cuba was assured, the 
perpetuation of our long-established policy toward 
that island was guaranteed, and the door was kept 
open for a larger assertion of American authority 
if ever, as is not improbable, it shall become 
desirable. 

Porto Rico was ceded outright to the United 
States. But in the treaty there was no provision 
for the erection of the island into a state. On the 
contrary, it was the understanding that it would 
be held permanently as a territory or a colony out- 
side of the Union and outside of the Constitution 
save as the latter should be extended to it by 
special act of Congress. Thus for a time a tariff 
was levied upon goods imported into the United 
States from Porto Rico, and also upon goods enter- 
ing Porto Rico from the United States. The island 
was treated, for tariff purposes, as though it were 
a foreign country. The legality of this was dis- 
puted, and the matter was carried into the courts. 



294 ^ CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

The result was that the poHcy of the government 
was, in the main, upheld. It was substantially de- 
cided by the Supreme Court of the United States 
that the Constitution did not extend to Porto Rico, 
except as it might be specially extended to it by 
Congressional enactment, and that therefore the 
island was not necessarily within the customs union 
of the United States. In brief, Porto Rico was a 
possession of the United States, but not a part of 
the Constitutional Union. That was in exact accord 
with the theories held by the best authorities, and 
acted upon by the government, in the cases of 
Louisiana and Florida, many years before. That 
principle now prevails, and Porto Rico is held as a 
territory outside of the Union and not destined to 
be admitted to the Union, though entire freedom of 
trade has been established between the two countries. 
The same principle that was apphed to Porto 
Rico was applied to the Philippines, the same con- 
tentions were raised against it, and the same vic- 
tory for it was won in the courts. The system of 
government established in the Philippines differs 
greatly from that in Porto Rico, as is quite fitting. 
The Constitution does not prescribe uniformity of 
territorial government, but leaves it to Congress 
to give to each territory such a form of government 
as is best suited to its local requirements. The 
fundamental resemblance between the two is that 
they are both outside the Union of states and are 
intended thus to remain. 



THE SPANISH ISLANDS 295 

This is, as we have seen, no " new departure " 
in American policy. It is merely the fulfilment 
and maintenance of the principle set forth in the 
Declaration of Independence, that the United 
States is competent to do anything which any in- 
dependent nation may of right do — including, of 
course, the acquisition and government of colonies 
and outlying territories. It is in accord with the 
provisions of the Constitution, that it is a " Consti- 
tution for the United States of America" — not for 
alien lands, and not for what is elsewhere described 
in the Constitution as " the Territory or other prop- 
erty belonging to the United States," but for the 
United States, and for the United States alone. 



CHAPTER X 

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 

The diplomatic results of our latest territorial 
annexations have chiefly to do with the Monroe 
Doctrine and with the extension of American in- 
terests and influence in Asia. It has been argued 
that by invading Asia, the United States has for- 
feited the Monroe Doctrine ; that that Doctrine is 
a prohibition of European conquests in America 
and, of course, a renunciation of American rights of 
conquest in the Old World ; and that so, if Amer- 
ica ignores that renunciation and proceeds with 
conquests and annexations in Asia, the European 
powers are made free to do likewise in America. 
These strange views have been put forth in Europe, 
especially in Germany, and have even found an 
echo in America. We must regard them, however, 
as altogether unfounded and illogical. 

The Monroe Doctrine was in no sense a self- 
denying ordinance, excepting so far as Europe and 
European possessions then existing in America 
were concerned. There is not in it the slightest 
obligation, direct or implied, for the United States 

296 



'4 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 297 

to confine its interests and its activities to the 
American continents or to the western hemisphere. 
Let us recall its phrases : — 

" The occasion has been judged proper for assert- 
ing," said Mr. Monroe, "as a principle in which 
the rights and interests of the United States are 
involved, that the American continents are hence- 
forth not to be considered as subjects for future 
colonization by any European powers. ... In the 
wars of the European powers, in matters relating 
to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor 
does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only 
when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced, 
that we resent injuries or make preparations for 
our defence. . . . With the existing colonies or 
dependencies of any European power, we have not 
interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the 
governments who have declared their independence 
and maintained it, and whose independence we have, 
on great consideration, and on just principles, 
acknowledged, we could not view any interposition 
for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, 
in any other manner, their destiny, by any Euro- 
pean power, in any other light than as the mani- 
festation of an unfriendly disposition toward the 
United States." 

Now it is quite obvious that this famous and, on 
the whole, admirable and beneficent utterance was 
not, and is not to be, taken literally. For literally 
it was not and is not true. " With the existing 



298 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

colonies or dependencies of any European power, 
we have not interfered." The President who 
penned those words had himself been one of the 
envoys who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase 
treaty, and he knew quite well that that transaction 
was nothing in the world but the alternative to a 
war in which we should have interfered with an 
existing colony or dependency of France. Again, 
he had been President a few years before the date 
of his Doctrine, when the United States army did 
forcibly interfere with Florida, an existing colony 
or dependency of Spain, and practically achieved 
the conquest of it, and he had made the treaty 
under which Spain was compelled, under penalty 
of outright confiscation, to sell her Florida posses- 
sions to us at our own price. Moreover, he had 
already sanctioned the adoption of a policy of 
American interference with the Spanish colony of 
Cuba, to the extent of declaring that it should not 
be alienated to any other power. 

It is, therefore, not to the ungrammatical and not 
altogether truthful letter of the Doctrine, but to 
the spirit of it, that we must look for its real pur- 
port. That spirit is briefly to this effect, that Eu- 
rope must not meddle with the domestic interests 
of the Americas, and that in return the United 
States will not meddle with the domestic affairs of 
Europe. That is all. There is nothing in it that 
forbids European powers to make treaties with or 
to wage war against American states, and as a 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 299 

matter of fact such treaties have been made and 
such wars have been waged without our protest. 
There is nothing to prevent European powers from 
collecting debts due them from American states, 
or from holding the latter responsible for the dis- 
charge of international obligations, which also they 
have repeatedly done. Such affairs are not domes- 
tic to America, but are international in scope. 
Neither does the Doctrine bar America from a 
certain participation in European affairs. " In 
the wars of the European powers, in matters re- 
lating to themselves, we have never taken any 
part." No. But we had taken part in European 
wars in matters relating to ourselves. We had 
sent fleets and an army to the Mediterranean, and 
to those North African states which were much 
more nearly a part of the European system than 
is eastern Asia. 

The Monroe Doctrine, therefore, does not in 
either letter or spirit bar us out of Asia, unless we 
are to consider Asia a part of Europe, which would 
be absurd. Asia is left a neutral ground between 
Europe and America, in which the latter has equal 
rights with the former, in both peace and war. 
America, just as much as Europe, is entitled to an 
open door in Asia for peaceful commerce, and, in 
emergency, she has an equal right to exert physical 
force upon Asia for the attainment of her ends. 
This America has already done, more than once. 
The "opening" of Japan was acquiesced in by 



300 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

European powers, which profited from it. The 
"opening" of Korea was not reckoned a violation 
of the Monroe Doctrine. Neither has our acquisi- 
tion of the Phihppines traversed that Doctrine in 
any sense. It is from it a matter entirely apart. 

The annexation of the Philippines does not mark 
any "new departure " in our Asian policy or in our 
international relations, but merely an extension and 
confirmation of principles and policies already well 
established. Neither do these recent acquisitions 
and expansions make America for the first time a 
"world power " and for the first time introduce her 
into "world politics." Our review of the century 
of expansion has been vain if it has not shown that, 
for a hundred years and more, this has been a 
world power engaged in the practice of world 
politics. Europe's Seven Years' War was begun 
upon American soil. The negotiations of 1783 at 
Paris involved the politics of Europe as well as the 
recognition of American independence. The Loui- 
siana Purchase and the Monroe Doctrine were 
things that affected the world outside of our boun- 
daries. From the very beginning America has been 
a world power and a participant in world politics. 
It has fought two wars with Great Britain, two 
with the Barbary States, and practically one with 
France. It has warned the French to quit Mexico, 
and the British to quit Hawaii, and both France 
and Great Britain to keep hands off Cuba, It has 
arbitrated with Great Britain, before international 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 30I 

tribunals, the Alabama claims, the San Juan boun- 
dary, and the Behring Sea dispute. It entered 
into the Clayton-Bulvver treaty with Great Britain, 
and into the Samoan treaty with Great Britain and 
Germany. It took part in the international courts 
of Egypt. It opened Japan and Korea. And all 
these things were long before the acquisition of 
the Philippines. 

The notion that America should refrain from 
taking part in so-called world politics is as mis- 
taken as it is futile. It appears to have arisen from 
an overstrained interpretation of some passages in 
Washington's Farewell Address. There are al- 
ways some souls "more royal than the king." So 
there are and have been those who, catching upon 
a part of Washington's meaning in that famous 
address of his, would enforce a partial conception 
of his policy to an extent of which he never 
dreamed and which he would to-day be the last to 
approve. Washington was not unmindful of the 
rule that "the times change and we change with 
them." He had assuredly no notion of laying 
down for three or four million poor, weak, strug- 
gling colonists on the Atlantic coast a rule that 
should be binding and unchangeable as the laws 
of the Medes and Persians, hard and fast forever, 
upon one of the largest, richest, and strongest 
nations in the world, with a domain stretching from 
sea to sea upon this continent and including hun- 
dreds of oceanic islands reachins: in a chain half- 



302 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

way round the globe. He did not mean such folly, 
any more than he meant the Thirteen Colonies to 
remain forever content with the Atlantic littoral. 
The fiery expansionist who led his rude and un- 
governable conquistadors across the Alleghanies 
to do battle for the Ohio Valley, would, if he were 
living to-day, be foremost in extending American 
interests and American influence to the uttermost 
ends of the earth. 

What Washington urged upon his countrymen 
was that it was best for this country, not as it 
might be at some future time, but as it was then, 
young, poor, and feeble, to refrain not from inter- 
national relations and even alliances, but from per- 
manent alliances with European powers. He said 
not a word against temporary alliances, even at 
that early date. Indeed, he explicitly mentioned 
them as in certain circumstances to be welcomed. 
Jefferson, too, is often quoted as an authority 
against entangling alliances. Yet, as we have 
seen, Jefferson explicitly suggested and urged an 
offensive and defensive alliance with one European 
power for the purpose of intruding ourselves into 
European complications and waging war against 
another European power. The simple fact is that 
the founders of this republic had no idea of mak- 
ing it a hermit nation, such as some Asian realms 
have been. They meant it rather to be a "world 
power," generous and active in the affairs which 
concern or should concern all nations. Their ideal 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 303 

for it was that of a nation which should adopt and 
adapt to itself the words of the Roman sage, 
" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto," 
saying for itself, "I am a humane nation, and what- 
ever concerns mankind concerns me." 
■^ The diplomatic effect of our latest act of expan- 
sion is, therefore, more subjective than objective. 
It does not alter our attitude toward the world at 
large. But it serves, or should powerfully serve, 
to remind us anew of that attitude, of the privileges 
which it conveys, and of the responsibilities which 
it imposes. It is one of the benefits of contact 
with other nations, even of the rude contact of war, 
that it inculcates a sense of courtesy and of ac- 
countability, and of amenability to the customs 
and laws of the world at large. Our dealings with 
Spain and our acquisition of the remains of her 
colonial empire have, on the one hand, demonstrated 
to the rest of the world our power and growth, 
and have, on the other hand, taught us the necessity 
of courtesy and consideration in dealing with our 
neighbors, and of observing the rule of " do ut 
des." 

Nor is there lacking a pregnant suggestion of the 
possibilities and limits of further American territo- 
rial expansion, whether by purchase or by con- 
quest. We have seen that the entire process of 
our expansion, not only for a century, but since 
that first excursion through Swift Run Gap, has 
been coherent and sequential, each step prescrib- 



304 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

ing the next according to the law of cause and 
effect, and all made according to well-defined and 
reasonable principles. Whatever further acquisi- 
tions of territory there may be, therefore, should 
be in consonance with those same principles and in 
pursuance of the same consistent and established 
policy. On such grounds the limits of expansion 
are, perhaps, most clearly to be seen. We need no 
more territory for settlement and occupation, as 
we needed the Ohio Valley, wherefore we shall 
seek no more for that purpose. We need none 
and shall seek none for the opening of routes of 
commerce, as we did in the case of Louisiana ; for 
it is to be assumed that free transit across the 
American isthmus will be secured by other means. 
If such transit were unreasonably and arbitrarily 
denied, however, the same natural law that re- 
quired the opening of the Mississippi to commerce 
might be held applicable again. It will not be 
necessary to oust any more neighbors from this 
continent, as we did France, for fear lest they 
grow too strong for our safety ; for neither Canada 
nor Mexico contains any such potentiality. Nei- 
ther, seeing how well those neighbors maintain 
order and fulfil their neighborly obligations toward 
us, will there be any cause for treating them as we 
did Florida. 

The one quarter, then, in which there seems to 
remain reason for further expansion, at least within 
the practically measurable future, is in the West 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 305 

Indies. It was there that the cause of our latest 
conquests arose, and the same principle that made 
that cause operative still prevails. That is, the 
reversionary title of the United States to the 
islands lying off its coast. We have seen how con- 
sistently and effectively that principle was main- 
tained in the case of Cuba — that that island must 
not be transferred by Spain to any other power, 
but, if relinquished by Spain, must become indepen- 
dent under our protection or must become our prop- 
erty. Cuba has, in accordance with that rule, now 
become independent, under our protection ; and if 
ever her experiment of independence shall fail, she 
will inevitably become our territory. The United 
States could not tolerate anarchy in Cuba, nor 
the acquisition of that island by any other 
power. 

The second island of the West Indies in point of 
size, Hayti, is now divided between two indepen- 
dent republics. They are pursuing a troubled 
course, which may decline into hopeless anarchy, 
or may happily lead upward into tranquil prosperity. 
If the latter, we shall be pleased to see them re- 
m&,in forever independent. If the former, it may 
become necessary for the United States to inter- 
vene and even to establish its authority over 
them. In any case, there must be an inexorable 
American prohibition of anything like European 
conquest or control of them. They must re- 
main independent, and justify their indepen- 



306 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

dence, or else become territories of the United 
States. 

The other islands are now possessions of Euro- 
pean powers — Great Britain, France, Denmark, and 
the Netherlands. There is, under the capable and 
enlightened governments of those powers, no 
danger that we shall ever be called to intervene in 
them for humanity's sake, as we did in Cuba. But 
the same principle of reversionary right which we 
established in the case of Cuba long ago seems to 
be equally applicable to them. With their present 
ownership, in the words of the Monroe Doctrine, 
we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But 
it would not be compatible with American interests 
and welfare for such ownership to be transferred to 
any other power. So long as those powers wish to 
hold and can hold those islands, the United States 
will fully respect their right to do so. But when- 
ever they relinquish them, the islands must either 
become independent or must become territories of 
the United States. Indeed, we may regard the 
latter as the sole alternative, since the islands are 
too small to form permanent and prosperous inde- 
pendent commonwealths. We may even go further 
than that, and say that no island in American 
waters can be permitted to share the fate of its 
present owner, should the status of the latter be 
changed in any way. For example, if one of the 
powers now owning some of these islands should 
be conquered and annexed by another European 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 307 

power, or should voluntarily incorporate itself into 
the empire of another, it would not be com- 
patible with American interests for its colonial 
possessions in American waters or on the Ameri- 
can continent to go with it into that new 
connection, 

America cannot, however, play the part of the dog 
in the manger. She cannot prohibit the transfer 
of these islands from one power to another without 
accepting the alternative. She must, that is to say, 
stand ready to take possession of them herself 
whenever they are to be separated from their pres- 
ent owners. This, we may assume, will in each 
case be effected by peaceful treaty of purchase and 
cession, though it behooves this country to be not 
unprepared for more strenuous measures, should 
alien animosity or other circumstances make them 
necessary for the protection and maintenance of 
American rights. 

Beyond these possible prospects of expansion, it 
is not profitable to look. Expansion has never 
been and never should be an end in itself, but 
merely a means of working out our highest national 
destiny. It has in the past proved such a means, 
absolutely essential and inestimably profitable. It 
would hereafter be deplorable, and deserving of 
strongest condemnation, for America to seize upon 
any additional territory, great or small, through 
mere lust of land. It would be equally deplorable 
and worthy of condemnation for America to decline 



308 A CENTURY OF EXPANSION 

the acquisition, whether by peaceful purchase or by 
forcible conquest, of any territory the control of 
which by us was dictated by humanity or honor, or 
the possession of which was essential to our own 
safety, peace, and prosperity. 



INDEX 



Adams, John, share in making 
Treaty of Paris, 53. 

Adams, John Quincy, supports 
Jackson in Florida, 145; ungrate- 
fully treated by Jackson, 146 ; ne- 
gotiations with Don Luis de 
Onis, 147 ; opposed by treacher- 
ous colleagues, 148; his triumph, 
149 ; treatment of General Vives, 
150; forecasts Monroe Doctrine, 
153 ; vigorous Texan policy, 164 ; 
maligned by Jackson, 170 ; Cuban 
policy, 264. 

Alaska, history of, 199; decline 
of prosperity, 201 ; boundary de- 
termined by Russia and Great 
Britain, 204; Russia's desire to 
relinquish, 205 ; negotiations 
over, 208 ; treaty of cession to 
United States, 211; government 
and status of, 216 ; Bering Sea 
controversy, 217 ; value of the 
territory, 219. 

Ambrister case, 144, 

Amelia Island, 140. 

America, North, early division of, 
3 ; after French and Indian War, 
28 ; French and Spanish designs 
in 1783, 48; under Treaty of 
Paris, 55; final division, 198. 

American Independence, seeds 
sown in French and Indian War, 
28 ; full fruition found only in 
continental domination, 80. 

Arbuthnot case, 144. 



Astor, John Jacob, founds settle- 
ment in Oregon, 184. 
AURY, John, 140. 

Baranoff, Alexander, 201. 

Benton, Thomas Hart, on Cal- 
houn's Texas policy, 175 ; on 
Oregon, 192. 

Bering Sea controversy, 217. 

Blaine, James G., vigorous policy 
in Hawaii, 240. 

Blount, J. H., " Commissioner 
Paramount " to Hawaii, 250. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, plans 
French empire in America, 74; 
expedition to Louisiana, 76; 
scorns Jefferson's proposal for 
Louisiana, 93 ; sudden change 
of policy, 94; offers to sell 
Louisiana, 95. 

BOTTA'S History quoted, 47. 

Burr, Aaron, negotiations with 
Jackson, 137. 

Calhoun, John C, Texas annex- 
ation policy, 174; Oregon pol- 
icy, 189; comments on Mexican 
War, 197. 

Carondelet, Baron, incites Ind- 
ians to hostility, 67. 

Claiborne, W. C. C, at transfer 
of Louisiana, 116; first governor 
of Louisiana, 118. 

Clark, George Rogers, 33; 
scheme for winning Northwest 



309 



3IO 



INDEX 



Territory, 35; negotiations with 
Patrick Henry, 36; his dual 
commission, 38; beginning of 
Kaskaskia campaign, 40 ; capture 
of Kaskaskia, 41 ; capture of 
, Vincennes, 43 ; builds Fort Jef- 
ferson, 45; secession plans and 
intrigues with Spain, 66; in- 
trigues with Genet, 68. 

Clark, William, expedition to 
Oregon, 184. 

Clay, Henry, Cuban policy, 267. 

Cleveland, Grover, withdraws 
Hawaiian annexation treaty, 
250; sends J. H. Blount to 
Hawaii, 250; condemns United 
States action in Hawaii, 251; 
abandons Hawaiian problem, 
255 ; recommends sanction of 
Hawaiian lease to Great Britain, 
256 ; message on intervention in 
Cuba, 270. 

Congress, instructions to Peace 
Commissioners, 48 ; ratifies 
Treaty of Paris, 57 ; votes 
^2,000,000 to Jefferson for pur- 
chase of New Orleans, 90 ; rati- 
fies Louisiana Purchase, 97; 
debates over Louisiana, 100; 
power to hold and govern terri- 
tory, no; provides government 
for Louisiana, 117; authorizes 
seizure of Florida, 131 ; rejects 
Texas annexation treaty, 175; 
Tyler's appeal to House against 
Senate, 176; annexation of Texas 
by joint resolution, 178 ; Oregon 
treaty, 194; reasons for acquir- 
ing Alaska, 212; terms of Alaska 
treaty, 214 ; Hawaiian reciprocity 
defeated, 238 ; failure to ratify 
Hawaiian annexation treaty, 
250; refusal to sanction British 
lease of Hawaiian island, 256; 
new Hawaiian annexation 
scheme considered, 257; an- 



nexation of Hawaii by joint 
resolution, 259; territorial gov- 
ernment provided for Hawaii, 
259 ; government provided for 
Tutuila, 262; intervention in 
Cuba ordered, 274; Treaty of 
Paris ratified, 287. 

" Consent of the Governed," 
ignored by Jefferson in Louisi- 
ana, 118. 

Constitution of United States, 
Jefferson's strict construction of, 
96; interpretation of it through 
Louisiana Purchase, 100; power 
to acquire territory, loi ; no 
limit upon exterior powers of 
the nation, 107 ; power to hold 
territory outside of or to incor- 
porate it into the Union, 108; 
intention of authors, 156; Web- 
ster's exposition of, 156; ex- 
tension of it to Hawaii, 258; 
principles involved in Samoa, 
262 ; principles involved in 
Treaty of Paris, 295. 

Cuba, United States policy toward, 
first declared, 153 ; Adams's 
statement concerning, 264; Jef- 
ferson's policy, 266; Clay's 
policy, 267 ; American protector- 
ate over, 268; outbreak of final 
revolution, 269; destruction of 
the Maine, •2h<^ ; grounds for 
American intervention, 272; in- 
tervention ordered, 274 ; not to 
be annexed by the United States, 
274 ; disposition of in Treaty of 
Paris, 280; post helium annexa- 
tion talk, 288 ; becomes an inde- 
pendent republic, 292 ; mainte- 
nance of American protectorate, 
292. 

Davis, Cushman K., Peace Com- 
missioner, 279; attitude toward 
annexation of Philippines, 282. 



INDEX 



311 



Day, William R., Peace Commis- 
sioner, 279 ; attitude toward an- 
nexation of Philippines, 282. 

Dewey, George, destroys Spanish 
fleet at Manila, 277. 

DiNWIDDlE, Robert, executor of 
Spottswood's scheme of expan- 
sion, 16; sends out Ohio Com- 
pany, 18; appeals to England, 
19 ; sends Washington to North- 
west Territory, 20 ; decides on 
war, 22 ; sends Washington with 
troops to Pittsburg, 23. 

Ellicott, Andrew, marks Florida 
boundary, 72. 

English Colonies, early extent 
and character, 4. 

Expansion, first step taken by 
Virginia, 9 ; results of French 
and Indian War, 28; results of 
Revolution and Treaty of Paris, 
55 ; nation's first step under the 
Constitution, 98 ; a new era in 
expansion, 1 27; President Grant's 
plans defeated, 238 ; future pos- 
sibilities, 303. 

Fillmore, Millard, Hawaiian 
policy, 235. 

Fish, Hamilton, Hawaiian annexa- 
tion policy, 239. 

Florida, acquisition of, made in- 
evitable by that of Louisiana, 128; 
importance of, to United States, 
129; England's retrocession to 
Spain, 129 ; first dispute concern- 
ing, 130; Jefferson's schemes 
of annexation, 130; Congress 
authorizes seizure, 131 ; our 
policy dictated by the law of 
self-protection, 132; outlaws in 
Florida, 136; Jackson's invasion, 
139; Aury, and Amelia Island, 
140; practical conquest by Jack- 
son, 143; Arbuthnot and Am- 



brister tragedy, 144; treaty of 
cession, 151; significance of 
annexation, 152 ; legal and con- 
stitutional controversies over, 154. 

Forsyth, John, policy concerning 
Cuba, 268. 

Fort Necessity, 26. 

France, early holdings in Amer- 
ica, 3 ; expulsion from America, 
28 : hostility to America in 1783, 
49; chagrinatTreaty of Paris,54; 
purchase of Louisiana from 
Spain, 75; regarded as chief foe 
of United States, 86; prepara- 
tions for war with, 91 ; again ex- 
cluded from North American 
continent, 95 ; aggressions upon 
Hawaii, 232 ; proposal for triple 
guarantee in Cuba, 267. 

Franklin, Benjamin, share in 
Treaty of Paris, 53 ; letter to 
Vergennes, 54. 

French and Indian War, be- 
gun, 27 ; results, 28. 

Frye, William P., Peace Com- 
missioner, 279 ; attitude toward 
annexation of Philippines, 282. 

Gadsden Purchase, 196. 

Galveston, United States expedi- 
tion to, 140. 

Genet, M., intrigues to involve 
America in war, 68; commissions 
George Rogers Clark in French 
army, 69; recalled to France in 
disgrace, 70. 

Godoy, " Prince of the Peace," 
forced by Pinckney to make 
treaty, 71. 

Gray, George, Peace Commis- 
sioner, 279 ; attitude toward an- 
nexation of Philippines, 282. 

Gray, Robert, discovers Columbia 
River, 182. 

Great Britain, claims Oregon, 
186; negotiations over Oregon, 



312 



INDEX 



190; treaty, made, 193; negotia- 
tions with Russia over Alaska 
boundary, 204 ; aggressions upon 
Hawaii, 229; protest against 
cession of Pearl Harbor, 241 ; 
efforts to secure one Hawaiian 
island, 256; proposal of triple 
guarantee in Cuba, 267. 

Great Meadows, battle of, 25. 

Gresham, Walter Q., suggests 
forcible restoration of Liliuoka- 
lani, 253. 

Guam, ceded by Treaty of Paris, 
281. 

Hamilton, Alexander, first expan- 
sionist under the Constitution, 
80; founder of American conti- 
nental policy, 82 ; forecasts Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 83 ; policy as to 
Mississippi River, 85; triumph 
of his policy, 108. 

Hamilton, Henry, 41 ; brutal or- 
ders, 42 ; surrenders to Clark, 44. 

Harrison, Benjamin, Hawaiian 
annexation policy, 248. 

Hawaii, history of, 222; first 
American relations with, 223 ; 
advent of Christian missionaries 
in, 225 ; diplomatic relations with 
United States, 225; relations 
with Great Britain and France, 
226; American policy toward, 
formulated by Webster, 228 ; 
British aggressions, 229 ; Ameri- 
can protection extended, 230; 
French aggressions, 232 ; Ameri- 
can protectorate, 233 ; Fillmore's 
policy, 235 ; failure of first an- 
nexation scheme, 237 ; reciproc- 
ity desired, 238 ; reciprocity 
established, 240 ; cession of Pearl 
Harbor, 241 ; accession of Liliuo- 
kalani,242; beginning of revolu- 
tion, 243; Committee of Public 
Safety, 245 ; deposition of queen. 



246 ; recognition of new govern- 
ment, 247 ; annexation treaty 
made, 248 ; withdrawn from Sen- 
ate, 250; Willis's mission, 252; 
proposal to restore Liliuokalani, 
253 ; reply of provisional govern- 
ment, 253; fears of American 
coercion, 254; republican gov- 
ernment established, 255 ; ab- 
dication of Liliuokalani, 255 ; 
colonization by Japan, 256; Brit- 
ish efforts to secure one island, 
256; annexation negotiations re- 
sumed, 257 ; annexation effected, 
259; territorial government es- 
tablished, 259; no statehood 
contemplated, 260. 

Hayti, American interest in, 305. 

Henry, Patrick, commissions 
Clark for Kaskaskia campaign, 
36; dual orders, 38. 

Jackson, Andrew, relations with 
Jefferson and with Burr, 137 ; 
invasion of Florida, 139; practi- 
cal conquest of Florida, 143; 
Arbuthnot and Ambrister tragedy, 
144; a patriotic order-breaker, 
146 ; arbitrary government of 
Florida, 155 ; determination to 
annex Texas, 168 ; maligns John 
Quincy Adams, 170. 

Japan, efforts to gain control of 
Hawaii, 256, 

Jay, John, violates instructions of 
Congress, 52; proposed treaty 
with Spain, 70. 

Jefferson, Thomas, approves 
Clark's expedition, 36; orders to 
Clark, 45 ; proposes organization 
of Northwest Territory and Ordi- 
nance of 1787, 59; demands free 
navigation of Mississippi, 81 ; 
policy as to Mississippi, 85; 
wrath at France, 86; proposes 
British alliance, 87 ; adopts Ham- 



INDEX 



313 



ilton's continental policy, 89; 
sends out Lewis and Clark ex- 
pedition, 90; authorized by 
Congress to settle Mississippi 
controversy with ^2,000,000, 90; 
letter to Dupont de Nemours, 
93 ; approves Louisiana Pur- 
chase, 96; views of Constitution, 
loi ; imperialist designs, 130; 
aims to conquer or acquire Flor- 
ida, 130; policy toward Texas, 
162 ; policy toward Cuba, 266. 

Kalakaua, David, king of Ha- 
waii, 242. 

Kaskaskia, campaign against, 41. 

Kendrick, John, explorations in 
Oregon, 181. 

Kentucky, early settlements, 32 ; 
incorporated into Virginia, 33; 
admitted to Union as first new 
state west of Alleghanies, 61 ; 
importance of strategic position, 
61 ; secession movement, 66. 

Ledyard, James, suggests Lewis 
and Clark expedition, 90. 

Lewis and Clark expedition, 90, 
184. 

Lewis, Meriwether, expedition to 
Oregon, 184. 

LILIUOKALANI, queen of Hawaii, 
241 ; attempts a coup d 'ctat, 243 ; 
deposed, 246; vindictive policy, 
252; plans for restoration to 
throne, 253 ; abdication, 255. 

Madison, James, demands free 
navigation of Mississippi River, 
81. 

" Maine," destruction of warship, 
269. 

" Manifest Destiny," 167. 

Manila, battle of, 277. 

Marcy, William L., Hawaiian pol- 
icy, 235 ; ill-advised and futile 



plans for annexation of Hawaii, 
236. 

Matthews, Stanley, on govern- 
ment of territories, 157. 

Mckinley, William, submits Ha- 
waiian annexation treaty, 257 ; de- 
nounces excesses in Cuban war, 
270 ; message on intervention in 
Cuba, 271. 

Merritt, Wesley, testimony con- 
cerning Philippines, 283. 

Mexico, becomes independent, 
166 ; dispute over Texas, 173 ; 
war W'ith United States over 
Texas, 178; Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo, 179; Gadsden purchase, 
196. 

Mississii'Pi River, Americans first 
established upon, 45; increasing 
frontier upon, 62 ; importance of, 
to United States, 62; Spanish 
control of mouth of, 63; con- 
troversy over, 63 ; temporary 
settlement by Pinckney-Godoy 
treaty, 71 ; arbitrary action of 
Morales, 77 ; American deter- 
mination to get control of whole 
river, 77 ; possession acquired, 

95- 

Monroe Doctrine, foreshad- 
owed by Congress in 1811, 131 ; 
foreshadowed by John Quincy 
Adams, 153 ; directed against 
Russia, 202; relation to expan- 
sion, 297 ; not applicable to Asia, 
299. 

Monroe, James, negotiates for 
purchase of Louisiana, 93 ; orders 
seizure of Amelia Island, 140; 
proposes heroic treatment of 
Spain, 150; policy in Texas, 163; 
his " Doctrine," 297. 

Morgan, George, founds New 
Madrid, 68. 

Morris, Gouvemeur, on govern- 
ment of territories, 156. 



314 



INDEX 



Morrow, Justice, on government 
of territories, 157. 

National Spirit, growth of, 79; 
further increase of, 99. 

Natchez, American expedition 
to, 45- 

New Orleans, freedom of port, 
granted to America, 71 ; impor- 
tance of, 86; transfer of sover- 
eignty at, 116. 

Northwest Territory, won by 
Clark, 43; title to, 56; division 
of, 57 ; ceded to United States, 
58 ; Ordinance of 1787 for gov- 
ernment of, 59. 

Ohio Company, 17. 

Onis, Don Luis de, 147. 

Ordinance of 1787, 59. 

Oregon, origin of dispute over, 
160 ; history of, 180 ; discoveries 
and explorations of Kendrick 
and Gray, 181 ; American title to, 
185; missionary settlements in, 
187; "54.40 or fight!" 189; 
Polk's surrender, 194; treaty 
made with Great Britain, 195. 

Pago Pago, ceded to United 
States, 261. 

Pearl Harbor, ceded to United 
States, 241. 

Pensacola, occupied by British, 
138. 

Philippines, American expedi- 
tion against, 276; conquest of, 
277 ; controversy over, in Treaty 
of Paris, 281 ; attitude of Peace 
Commissioners toward, 282 ; 
Spanish efforts to retain, 285; 
terms of cession, 287; territorial 
status of, 294. 

PiCKERLNO, Timothy, denuncia- 
tion of Louisiana Purchase, 114. 



Pierce, Franklin, efforts to annex 
Hawaii, 237. 

Pinckney, Thomas, makes treaty 
with Spain, 71. 

Polk, James K., elected President 
on Oregon-Texas platform, 177; 
sacrifices Oregon, 194. 

Porto Rico, American policy con- 
cerning, established by Adams, 
265 ; ceded in Treaty of Paris, 
281; litigation over tariff, 293; 
territorial status of, 294. 

QuiNCY, Josiah, opposes admis- 
sion of Louisiana to Union, 122; 
advocates secession, 123. 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 
champion of States' Rights yet 
also of admission of Louisiana 
to statehood, 124. 

Reciprocity with Hawaii, 238, 240. 

Reid, Whitelaw, Peace Commis- 
sioner, 279; attitude toward an- 
nexation of Philippines, 282; 
vindication of his policy, 283. 

Revolutionary War, 31. 

Russia, warned to quit America, 
153 ; aggressions on Pacific 
coast, 182; hostility to America, 
199; conquest of Alaska, 200; 
forced to recede from arrogant 
pretensions, 202; negotiations 
with United Stales and with 
Great Britain, 203; desire to 
relinquish Alaska, 205; sells 
Alaska to United States, 211. 

St. Mark's, Jackson's seizure of, 

143- 

St. Pierre, Gardeur de, 21. 

Samoa, first relations with, 261 ; 
cession of Pago Pago, 261 ; trip- 
artite control, 261; partition of 
islands, 262; acquisition and 
government of Tutuila, 262. 

Secession, proposed by Kentuck- 



INDEX 



315 



ians, 66; contemplated by Jef- 
ferson, 113 ; advocated by Josiah 
Quincy, 123. 

Seward, William H., attracted to 
Alaska, 209 ; purchases Alaska, 
211; policy vindicated, 219 ; Ha- 
waiian annexation policy, 238. 

Slavery, involved in Texas con- 
troversy, 165 ; abolished in 
Texas, 166 ; restored, 170 ; de- 
feat of plans in Texas, 197. 

Southwest Territory, settled 
by colonists, 32; secured to 
United States, 56. 

Spain, able to conquer but not to 
colonize America, 2; early hold- 
ings in America, 3 ; hostile to 
United States, 48 ; control of 
lower Mississippi, 63; friction 
over Yazoo Territory, 64 ; seiz- 
ure of American vessels, 65; re- 
fusal to fulfil treaty, 72 ; sells 
Louisiana to France, 75 ; rapid 
decline of, 128 ; dispute over 
Florida, 130; refusal to ratify 
Florida treaty, 150 ; ratification 
of second Florida treaty, 151 ; 
war with United States over 
Cuba, 275 ; sues for peace, 278 ; 
efforts to retain Philippines, 285 ; 
cedes Philippines, 287. 

Spottswood, Alexander, first ex- 
pansionist, 10 ; expedition into 
Shenandoah Valley, 12; his 
schemes of expansion, 14; letter 
to the Lords of Trade, 15. 

States' Rights, discredited in ad- 
mission of Louisiana to Union, 
125. 

Stevens, John L., report on Ha- 
waiian troubles, 243 ; intervenes 
in revolution, 246 ; criticised by 
President Cleveland, 251. 

Tennessee, early settlements, 32 ; 
admitted to Union, 61. 



Texas, origin of dispute over, 160; 
Jefferson's policy, 162 ; Monroe's 
negotiations, 163; John Quincy 
Adams's policy, 164 ; affected by 
slavery question, 165 ; American 
colonization, 167 ; American at- 
tempts to purchase, 168 ; inde- 
pendence declared, 170; enlarge- 
ment of boundaries suggested, 
171; annexation treaty, 174; an- 
nexation by joint resolution, 
178. 

Treaty of Paris (1783), 46; 
English attitude in making, 47 ; 
French and Spanish attitude, 48 ; 
instructions of Congress to 
American Commissioners, 48; 
instructions broken, 53; treaty 
made, 54; results, 55; secret 
clause about Yazoo lands, 64. 

Treaty of Paris (1898), Ameri- 
can Commissioners for, 279; 
disposal of Cuba, 280; disposal 
of Porto Rico, 281 ; disposal of 
Philippines, 287; treaty made, 
287. 

Treaty of San Ildefonso, 75; 
resented in America, 86. 

Tyler, John, Texas policy, 173; 
appeals to House against Sen- 
ate, 176 : secures annexation of 
Texas by joint resolution, 178. 

United States, boundaries fi- 
nally fixed, 198; opposition to 
admission of non-contiguous 
territory, 239. 

Van Buren, Martin, Texas policy, 
172. 

Vergennes, Count de, hostility to 
America, 53. 

Vincennes, capture of, 53. 

Virginia, "Mother of Expan- 
sion," 10. 



3i6 



INDEX 



Washington, George, sent to aid 
Ohio Company, 20; mission to 
Fort Le Bojuf, 21 ; expedition to 
Pittsburg, 23 ; battle of Great 
Meadows, 25; Fort Necessity, 
26; sends Pinckney to Spain, 
71 ; interpretations of his Fare- 
well Address, 301. 

Wayne, Anthony, foils Clark's 
treason, 70. 

Webster, Daniel, exposition of 
Constitution, 156, 158 ; policy 
toward Hawaii, 228. 

West Indies, American interest 
in, 306. 

White, Samuel, denunciation of 
Louisiana Purchase, 114. 



Whitman, Marcus, great work for 

Oregon, 187. 
Wilkinson, James, traitorous 

plottings, 67. 
Willis, A. L., mission to Hawaii, 

252. 
" World Politics," America in, 

300. 
" World Power," 300. 

Yazoo Lands, dispute over, 64 ; 
speculation in, 70; dispute set- 
tled by treaty, 71 ; boundaries 
marked by EUicott, 72; Spanish 
evacuation, 73. 



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